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.