Can loyal party members be flexible negotiators? Impacts of constituent support, term limits and bipartisan roles

Purpose: This study aims to conduct two experiments to provide insight into the impacts of Congressional party loyalty on negotiating flexibility. Constituent support, term limits and bipartisan roles were explored as possible moderators of polarization in American political negotiations.

Design/methodology/approach: Experiment 1 used a 2 (party loyalty: loyal/thoughtful) × 2 (constituent support: consistent/mixed districts) experimental design. In experiment 2, party loyalty was constant, and participants were assigned to one of four conditions created by a 2 (term limits: restricted/not restricted) × 2 (role: coordinator/whip) design. In both experiments, flexibility was measured as the percentage of movement on four key budget allocation issues. Participants were recruited using Prolific.

Findings: Experiment 1 demonstrated that loyalty produced less flexibility, particularly with regard to one’s own preferred issues. Constituent support did not influence flexibility. The second experiment found that absence of term limits and presence of bipartisan roles resulted in more movement on the other’s preferred issues.

Research limitations/implications: While the authors’ manipulations have experimental validity, further field research is suggested to assess the fidelity of the authors’ simulation and the ecological validity of the experimental findings.

Practical implications: These findings extend the list of situational levers that impact negotiation flexibility. In particular, based on the authors’ findings, embedding bipartisan roles into traditional Congressional processes could help increase negotiating flexibility and cooperation.

Originality/value: Both the experimental task and variables manipulated in these experiments are embedded in a US Congressional context.