Wayne Carly Rationalizing Conflict

Article
Journal of Conflict Resolution

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The Polarizing Role DOI: 10.1177/0022002714564431
jcr.sagepub.com
of Accountability
in Ideological
Decision Making
Carly Wayne1, Roni Porat2,3, Maya Tamir2,
and Eran Halperin3
Abstract
How does accountability impact political decisions? Though previous research on
accountability has demonstrated its potential effects in the realms of business, elec-
tions, and more, very little research has explored the effect of citizen accountability in
highly ideological, intractable, and political conflicts. This article addresses this issue,
looking at the unique interaction between accountability and ideology on Israeli
citizens political attitudes regarding the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. The results of
two experimental studies in Israel reveal that accountable individuals behave in
significantly more ideologically partisan ways than their nonaccountable counter-
parts. Moreover, this polarization is dependent on the specific conflict context,
with leftists more affected by the issue of negotiations and rightists by security
concerns. This signals that ideological polarization under accountability may
depend on the issue ownership each ideological group feels toward the specific
conflict context and its corresponding social goal of projecting ideological con-
sistency on these issues.
1
Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
2
Department of Psychology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
3
Department of Psychology, IDC Herzliya, Herzliya, Israel
Corresponding Author:
Carly Wayne, Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, 505 South State Street, Ann Arbor,
MI 48109, USA.
Email: [email protected]
Downloaded from jcr.sagepub.com at CHINESE UNIV HONG KONG LIB on December 10, 2015
2 Journal of Conflict Resolution
Keywords
accountability, ideology, conflict, political attitudes, motivated reasoning
The idea that accountability has the potential to breed moderation among heretofore
radical political actors is an oft-cited rationale used by those who seek greater
engagement with (and responsibility from) extremist or recalcitrant political groups
and leaders. Particularly in the wake of the Arab Spring, optimistic politicians and
pundits have pointed out that, for example, the victory of Islamist parties across the
Middle East may be positive for democracy in that the accountability of public office
will force their leadership to behave pragmatically, eschewing extremist positions,
or ideological policy responses that could spur conflict (see Zakaria 2012).1 How-
ever, this article argues that the effects of accountability cannot necessarily be
applied to conflict contexts without first considering the interaction between
accountability and the strong ideological beliefs that characterize these types of
political conflicts. And, indeed, the political impact of accountability in such
strongly ideological contexts has rarely been empirically studied. In pushing for
greater accountability from citizens and leaders in conflict, are policy makers
increasing the chances for ideological moderation or polarization?
We argue that accountabilitythe implicit or explicit expectation that one may be
called upon to justify ones beliefs, feelings, and actions to others or face some neg-
ative consequence (Tetlock, Lerner, and Ramachandran 1994; Tetlock 1992)may
work counterintuitively in political conflicts, serving as a powerful motivating factor
to amplify ideological decisions and attitudes. In other words, accountability may
cause political actors to resort to familiar ideological arguments and the traditional
partisan rationales in which they are the most well versed in order to better justify
and explain their decisions to others. Moreover, as accountability is essentially a
social phenomenon (Tetlock 1992), it may have an impact on political decision mak-
ing even with a relatively minimal implied punishment, such as the potential loss of
face to an observer if one is unable to provide adequate justification for their polit-
ical opinions. This social component of accountability also means that its effects will
be profoundly impacted by the image an individual wants to project to said observer.
Some individuals social goals, such as being perceived of as knowledgeable, consis-
tent, or ideologically pure, may be best achieved by utilizing established ideological
arguments that they feel they understand and identify with most.
In the following section, we review the literature on the role of accountability in
decision-making processes, specifically focusing on how the socialpsychological
components of accountability can affect political decisions. We then examine the
role of ideology in informing political preferences and expand on previous research
in these areas to formulate the accountabilityideology interaction hypothesis. Then,
we report the findings of two experimental studies conducted among Israeli Jews in
2012 and 2013. Finally, we discuss the findings and their implications within a
Wayne et al. 3
broader context of accountability, ideology, and conflict decision-making research

and practice.
Accountability and Decision Making

Accountability can be conceptualized in many ways. Often political scientists view
accountability as inherently tied to political officeaccountability to voters implies
that representatives can be voted out of office if they do not satisfy their audience
(e.g., Bueno de Mesquita and Siverson 1995). Others view accountability as impli-
citly connected to the concept of wrongdoingindividuals must have trans-
gressed in some real or perceived way in order to be held accountable and then
they must provide some adequate explanation of the transgression (i.e., violence
against another) in order to avoid negative consequences (Sitkin and Bies 1993).
This approach demonstrates the ways in which accountabilitygiving accounts
or explanations (ibid.)can be used to actually manage and mitigate conflict (ibid.).
However, accountability can also be conceptualized at a more basic psycholo-
gical levelas a primarily social phenomenon in which individuals seek to main-
tain prestige and avoid losing face to any potential observers of their actions. In
this sense, accountability is defined as the implicit or explicit expectation that indi-
viduals may be called upon to justify their beliefs, feelings, and actions to others
(Tetlock, Lerner, and Ramachandran 1994; Semin and Manstead 1983; Tetlock
1992) with the assumption that, if one is not able to provide an adequate explana-
tion for their actions or beliefs, they may face some sort of punishment (Stenning
1995). This conception of accountability broadens its relevance to nearly every
action or belief of an individual that could be witnessed or observed by others, par-
ticularly on socially or politically relevant issues. Thus, the impact of accountabil-
ity applies broadly, beyond elected officials or militants, to average citizens as they
discuss and debate political issues in their daily lives.
Perceived this way, this social component of accountability could have a pro-
found impact on individuals political behavior and attitude expression, even in the
absence of a behavioral transgression meriting punishment. Indeed, many studies
have shown that the mere presence of other individuals can significantly alter beha-
vior (Zajonc 1965). For example, a series of studies (Felson 1982) found that simple
observation by other individuals (i.e., the presence of a third party) increased the
likelihood of the violent escalation of disputes. However, providing adequate expla-
nations for these perceived transgressions often prevented this escalation (ibid.). A
similar process may also occur in political contexts and the expression of hawkish or
dovish political beliefsthe presence and judgment of others may alter the expres-
sion of these political attitudes as individuals seek to save face or appear in a way
they view as socially desirableproviding adequate justification for ones political
views could be perceived of as necessary to avoid a negative evaluation.
Because of these unique characteristics and potential repercussions of account-
ability, numerous studies have sought to understand the precise ways in which
different types of accountability alter the decision-making processes and behavioral

tendencies of individuals in a variety of contexts, such as medicine (Han and Lerner
2009), business negotiations (Lerner and Shonk 2006), tax audits (Buchman,
Tetlock, and Reed 1996), postwar aid (Skitka, McMurray, and Burroughs 1991),
education (Burke 2005; Fuhrman and Elmore 2004; Linn 2000; Miller 1995), the
criminal justice system (Stenning 1995), and representative government (Behn
2001; Bueno de Mesquita and Siverson 1995; Grant and Keohane 2005; March and
Olsen 1995; Przeworski, Stokes, and Manin 1999). The central goal of most of these
accountability studies has been to determine when and how accountability could
improve decision-making processes and overall performance.2 This research has
revealed that only certain types of accountability are likely to reduce the effect of
cognitive biases and potentially improve the accuracy of decision-making processes.
For example, postdecision accountability has been found to promote confirmatory
thought (a one-sided attempt to rationalize a prior decision or belief), whereas
predecision accountability is more likely to lead to exploratory thought (Lerner and
Tetlock 2003). Moreover, studies in the area of representative government have
demonstrated that the audience to which a decision maker is accountable is partic-
ularly important in affecting decision-making processes. Namely, accountability can
have the effect of reducing incentives for compromise, as elected officials seek to
appeal to their respective ideological bases (e.g., Voeten and Brewer 2006; Koch and
Gartner 2005; Anderson and Souva 2010).
Thus, for accountability to promote deep thinking, the views of the audience
must be unknown (Tetlock 1992). Accountability must also be (1) predecisional,
(2) focused on process as well as outcome, and (3) invoked by an audience who
has the right to hold a decision maker accountable (Lerner and Tetlock 1999).
These findings echo the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty and Cacioppo
1986) of attitude change. Namely, this type of accountability has the potential to
promote preemptive self-criticism (Tetlock 1983a) or a central route of
attitude change (Petty and Cacioppo 1986) that entails the thoughtful and careful
reconsideration of the true merits of a particular argument or preference. In con-
trast, if these conditions are not met, or some mitigating factor interferes with
this process, accountability may instead trigger peripheral processing (ibid.),
encouraging conformity to audience views, defensive bolstering of a previously
held issue position, escalation of commitment, or a digging in effect (Tetlock
and Lerner 1999).
The current study emphasizes that, in political conflict, the potential of account-
ability to encourage ideological consistency may exist even under these ideal
accountability circumstances, due to the sheer power of ideology to inform polit-
ical attitudes in conflict contexts and individuals social goal of projecting consis-
tency on these issues.3 This hypothesis is rooted in the idea of the contingency
model of accountability (Tetlock 1992). The contingency model explains the
effects of accountability on judgment and decision making through the lens of the
social desirability of individuals to feel the approval and respect of those to
Wayne et al. 5
whom they are accountable (p. 339). In other words, the implied punishment of
accountability can be as minimal as social disapproval and still influence decision
making and behavior.4
Ideology and Political Attitudes

The strong influence of political ideology on political preferences and behavior is
also well established in political science literature (for a review, see Hinich and
Munger 1996). And indeed, ideology has been shown to be a potent motiva-
tional force, as human beings are capable of committing atrocities (as well
as acts of generosity and courage) and sacrificing even their own lives for the
sake of abstract belief systems (Jost and Amodio 2011, 55, emphasis added).
In political conflicts, the role of ideology in political decision making is often
particularly strong (Bar-Tal 2007). However, ideology is also often a fraught term
with many different meanings for political scientists. The present research uti-
lizes a political psychological definition of ideology, conceptualizing it as a set
of beliefs that aim to provide both an interpretation of the environment and a
prescription as to how that environment should be structured (Denzau and North
1994, 24).5 According to Jost, Federico, and Napier (2009), ideologies are more
than just a collection of political beliefs and in fact fundamentally help citizens to
interpret their world by making assertions or assumptions about human nature,
historical events, present realities, and future possibilities (p. 309). Thus, in the
motivational approach, ideology and specific support for concrete political poli-
cies are distinct but related concepts. Moreover, rather than expressing ideology
as contingent on political information and sophistication, and therefore only per-
tinent to a subset of the population, this approach understands ideology as rele-
vant to all individuals due to the role it plays in serving basic psychological
needs that all people possess.
This idea of motivated reasoning (Tetlock 1983a, 1983b, 1985; Kunda 1990;
Gerber and Green 1999; Lodge and Taber 2005; Redlawsk 2002), as it pertains
to ideology, strongly supports the hypothesis of this articlethat individuals will
be motivated to behave in more ideologically consistent ways to the extent that
they feel they will be held accountable (and thus have to justify) their political
decisions to a third party. In a highly ideological environment like the one of
intractable conflicts, ideological consistency may represent a more important
social goal for individuals than moderation or self-critical thought, even when the
views of the audience to whom they are accountable are unknown. Moreover,
expressing more ideologically consistent attitudes may help individuals better
defend their issue positions using traditional well-versed ideological arguments.
Thus, in these contexts, ideology may serve as both a tool for projecting cognitive
consistency and an easily accessible set of arguments that enables individuals to
justify their decisions and project acumen and confidence regarding their political
beliefs (Federico and Hunt 2013).
The AccountabilityIdeology Interaction Hypothesis

This article thus merges the motivational approach to the study of the ideology
policy preference association with the contingency theory of accountability,
hypothesizing that, to the extent that accountability is a social process of judgment
(Tetlock 1992), accountability will reinforce ideology as an important mechanism
for rationalizing and justifying political decisions. In other words, higher levels
of accountability will increase participants adherence to their ideological beliefs
in their reported policy preferences rather than moderating their attitudes toward
the ideological center, particularly in the strongly ideological context of intract-
able conflict.
We hypothesize that this interaction occurs for two main reasons. First, accord-
ing to the ELM model, when individuals expect that they will need to justify their
beliefs to a third party, they will tend to search for more arguments to support their
viewpoints (Petty and Cacioppo 1986). Because ideological arguments, and their
corresponding rationales, are familiar, well known, and easily accessed in political
debates, ideology serves as a source of justification for individuals placed under
stress by the demands of accountability. Particularly in the Israeli context of this
study, the IsraeliPalestinian conflict is a highly salient ideological issue, with
Israeli citizens supporting or opposing compromises or military actions toward the
Palestinians largely along a left-right partisan continuum. On both sides of the
ideological spectrum, Israeli citizens are highly steeped in the political rhetoric
of the conflict, familiar with, and taking strong positions regarding, the ideological
arguments for and against militancy or compromise with the Palestinians (Shamir
and Arian 1999; Hazan 2007). Thus, individuals may be even more likely to resort
to these ideological rationales and defensive bolstering of their position6 when
they are held accountable in order to maintain the appearance of consistency and
better justify their decision to an outside observer. In other words, individuals may
become more ideologically extreme rather than moderating their views toward the
center of the political spectrum.
Second, individuals may respond more ideologically because the social goals of
ideological individuals in conflict contexts may not be to appear moderate or com-
promising, but rather to appear ideologically consistent to an outside observer.
Indeed, ideological individuals will most likely want to be seen by others (and
by themselves) as staying true to their ideological belief systems and socialpolit-
ical values, rather than compromising their ideological values for the sake of mod-
eration. In other words, under situations of accountability, in order to avoid being
forced to explain differences between their proclaimed ideological affiliation and
their current political positions, individuals may be tempted to double down,
selecting their policy preferences in more classically ideological ways. As such,
under situations of high accountability, a fundamentally social phenomenon in
which individuals are judged and evaluated by others, people may report stronger
adherence to ideological political principles than they would have under more
Wayne et al. 7
ambiguous, anonymous circumstances in order to project a self-image that they

would consider both positive and consistent.
The ContextThe IsraeliPalestinian Conflict

The IsraeliPalestinian conflict is one of the worlds most deeply intractable con-
flicts. Originating in the early twentieth century over competing claims to the land
between Jewish Zionist immigrants and the Arab inhabitants of mandate Palestine,
then under British control, this conflict continues to rage over core issues of bor-
ders, refugees, security, and the fate of the holy city of Jerusalem. Since 2000,
6,876 Palestinian citizens have been killed by Israeli security forces; likewise,
1,082 Israeli citizens have been killed by Palestinian militants (BTselem 2013).
Recent years have seen little improvement. In Operation Cast Lead alonethe
three-week armed conflict that took place in the Gaza Strip during the winter of
2008 to 2009 in response to rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled Strip1,398
Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes and over a million Israelis lived within
range of Hamas rockets, routinely running to bomb shelters as air raid sirens rang
overhead (BTselem 2013).
Years of negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian
Authority (formerly the PLO) in the West Bank have also produced disappointing
results. After the promise of the Oslo Accords in the late 1990s, the region quickly
descended into violence once more with the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks
and the start of the Second Intifada, a violent Palestinian uprising that led to the
deaths of over 4,000 Palestinians and 500 Israelis. A series of failed peace talks
followed the intifadathe 2001 Taba Summit, the 2002 Quartet Road Map, the
2003 Geneva Initiative, the 2007 Annapolis Conference, and the most recent 2013
effort by US secretary of state John Kerry that has largely stagnated.
This frustrating history has engendered a strong ideological debate within Israeli
(and Palestinian) society over the correct path toward peace (or even if such a path
exists at all). The Israeli left supports the concept of land for peace and endorses
good faith negotiations with the Palestinians on the basis of the 1967 borders (Arian
and Shamir 2011). The Israeli right, on the other hand, privileges Israeli security
concerns and emphasizes the importance of attacking terrorist networks and main-
taining Israeli sovereignty over disputed territories in the West Bank (Arian and Sha-
mir 2011). It is in this violent, frustrating, and strongly ideological conflict in which
the current study takes place.
The Current Research

The following two experimental studies examine the ideologyaccountability inter-
action hypothesis in the context of the ongoing IsraeliPalestinian conflict. Study 1
seeks to first establish the validity of the hypothesis by examining Israeli citizens
receptiveness to specific political compromises with the Palestinians in a potential
negotiation scenario under accountable and nonaccountable circumstances. Study 2

expands on study 1 by examining whether the accountabilityinteraction hypothesis
remains valid in different types of conflict scenarios and whether it also influences
general political preferences for military or diplomatic solutions to the conflict.
Study 1
Study 1 was designed to causally test the ideologyaccountability interaction
hypothesis by manipulating accountability and then measuring support for a spe-
cific (supposedly existing) proposal by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud
Abbas for the renewal of negotiations with Israel. In this study, the central hypoth-
esis is that ideological differences in support for the negotiations proposal will be
exacerbated by accountability. Specifically, we expect that accountable leftists
and rightists will evoke significantly more partisan political attitudes toward the
proposal than those in the control condition. In contrast, because centrists are often
defined by their very lack of conformity to a specific ideology, centrists should feel
little social pressure to conform to a clear left or right wing ideology or appear
more ideologically consistent when held accountable. Moreover, since centrists
may also be apathetic or generally confused about their political views, the social
pressure to project a specific viewpoint should be largely absent. Thus, we
hypothesized that we should not see any significant changes in the political atti-
tudes of centrists between the accountable and control conditions.
Methodology
Participants. Seventy-four law and government students at the Interdisciplinary Cen-
ter (IDC) Herzliya (thirty-four males and forty females), age ranging from twenty-
two to fifty (M 25.67, standard deviation [SD] 3.4), participated in the study and
were entered into a raffle to win 150 Israeli shekels for their participation (approxi-
mately US$40).7 The sample was largely secular, with 38 percent of the participants
identifying themselves as secular, 35.6 percent identifying themselves as secular
traditional, 12.3 percent as traditional, and only 6.8 percent as religious or Ultra-
Orthodox (an additional 6.8 percent chose not to answer). Politically, the sample
leaned somewhat to the right, like the Israeli society as a whole, with 27.4 percent
of the participants identifying themselves as belonging to the right or the extreme
right, 26 percent identifying as moderate right-wingers, 17.8 percent identifying them-
selves as centrist, and 28.8 percent as belonging to the center-left, left, or extreme left.8
Procedure. All participants were handed a survey form in which they were initially
exposed to the accountability or control condition and asked to read a fictional pro-
posal sent by the Palestinian Authority to Israeli prime minister Binyamin Neta-
nyahu for the renewal of negotiations (they believed the proposal was genuine
until their debriefing at the end of the study). Thirty-six individuals were randomly
Wayne et al. 9
assigned to the control condition and thirty-six individuals to the accountability

condition.
Following Lerner, Goldberg, and Tetlock (1998), participants in the accountabil-
ity condition were informed that, following their completion of the questionnaire,
they would be contacted to undergo a phone interview with (a fictional) Dr. Ephraim
Cohen during which they would be asked to detail the rationale behind their deci-
sions about the proposal. They were told that Dr. Cohen is a senior researcher at the
IDC who has studied the field of conflict decision making for many years. Impor-
tantly, they knew nothing about this fictional researchers political predispositions.
The wording of this manipulation mirrored the language used in Lerner, Goldberg,
and Tetlocks (1998, 566) accountability manipulation in their article published in
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Participants in the control condition
on the other hand were told that their decision and answers to the questions subse-
quently were completely anonymous and that we would not possess any identifying
information from the questionnaires.
This well-established accountability manipulation fits the accountability criteria
outlined by Tetlock and Lerner (1999) and Tetlock, Lerner, and Ramachandran
(1994) of evaluationparticipants expect that their performance will be assessed
by another according to some normative ground rules and with some implied
consequences, social or material. Participants must give a social account, not
of their actions but of their political beliefs, in order to avoid the punishment
of the negative social stigma they may receive for being unable to justify these
important beliefs (Sitkin and Bies 1993). This manipulation was designed to meet
the standards of accountability that Tetlock and Lerner (1999) conclude are most
likely to encourage thoughtful decision-making processes and a more central route
of information processing (Petty and Cacioppo 1986): (1) individuals are accounta-
ble to an audience with unknown views,9 (2) individuals are held accountable for the
decision-making process and not just the decision itself (i.e., their ability to justify
their rationale), (3) individuals are held accountable to someone who has the right to
hold them accountable (by virtue of expertise or position), and (4) individuals are
told that they will be accountable prior to making decisions.
The proposal itself offered ostensibly reasonable conditions for a return to
negotiations in which all final status issues would be on the table. Both the Pales-
tinians and the Israelis would make minor compromises, for example, by increas-
ing prosecution of suspected terrorists in the West Bank (the Palestinians) or by
removing impediments to Palestinian freedom of movement such as roadblocks
or checkpoints (the Israelis). This proposal was purposely designed to avoid the
most ideologically steeped core final status issues, focusing instead on smaller
compromises for which we might expect more flexibility of attitudes and less
reflexively ideological policy positions among respondents. After reading the pro-
posal, participants were asked to fill in a battery of questions regarding their polit-
ical opinions concerning the proposal. They were asked to evaluate on a ten-point
Likert-type scale political questions directly related to their acceptance or rejection
of this specific proposal, the studys dependent variable. After a series of filler
questions designed to distance participants from the manipulation and the conflict
context, participants then answered a series of demographic questions, including a
question regarding their self-placement on the ideological spectrum from extreme
right to extreme left. Students then submitted their questionnaires to the examiners
and received a debriefing before leaving the classroom.
Measures. Support for political compromise was measured by averaging the answers
to four questions related to support for the proposal, as rated on a ten-point Likert-
type scale, ranging from 1Not at allto 10Very much (a .94). The scale
included the items to what extent would you support this proposal if it was brought
to a referendum, to what extent would you personally recommend this proposal if
you were an advisor to the Israeli government, to what extent do you think Israel
should accept this proposal, and to what extent is this proposal good for Israel.
Ideological affiliation was assessed by individuals response to the question,
What is your political position? Individuals could select extreme right, right, center
right, center, center left, left, or extreme left. This question was asked at the very end
of the study after a long series of other filler and demographic questions to ensure that
the manipulation would still not influence respondents answers to this question.10
Demographic measures, in addition to ideology, included were the variables age,
gender, level of political engagement, religiosity, socioeconomic status, and education
level. Demographic questions were specifically limited to these items due to the neces-
sity of keeping the survey short in order to ensure full participation by the students.
Results
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations among Variables. We examined the means, stan-
dard deviations, and bivariate correlations among the variables, including the depen-
dent variables, possible control and mediating variables, and demographic indicators
(see Table 1). As hypothesized, levels of support for compromises were significantly
correlated with political ideology. This suggests, not surprisingly, that leftists were
more inclined to political compromise than rightists. Further regression analysis
revealed that even when controlling for the effects of all relevant sociopolitical vari-
ables (gender, age, socioeconomic level, political involvement, and educational attain-
ment) on support for political compromise, ideologys ability to predict such support
remained strong, model: R2 .44; F(7,58) 6.40, p .00; and coefficient: b .48,
p .00. In fact, level of religiosity was the only other variable that was significantly
related to support for political compromise (b .24, p < .05; see Table 2). This
relationship is not surprising in the Israeli context, where ideology and religiosity are
highly correlated in the population (Shamir and Arian 1999; Hazan 2007).
Main Effects. A t-test analysis found no main effects of accountability on mean levels
of support for political compromise between the accountability condition (M 4.07,
SD 1.74) and the control condition, M 4.21, SD 2.16, t(72) .29, p .77,
Table 1. Bivariate Correlations, Means, and Standard Deviations of Variables in Study 1.
M (SD) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Support for political compromise (low: 1 ! high: 10) 4.15 (1.95) 1

2. Age (2050) 25.69 (3.39) .070 1
3. Gender (M: 1, F: 2) 1.54 (.50) .148 .402** 1
4. Level of political engagement (low: 1, high: 6) 3.91 (.84) .218 .098 .285* 1
5. Ideological orientation (extreme right [1] ! extreme left [7]) 3.56 (1.41) .556** .137 .164 .231 1
6. Religiosity (low: 1 ! high: 6) 1.84 (.91) .310** .008 .123 .042 .341** 1
7. Socioeconomic status (low: 1 ! high: 6) 3.34 (1.54) .223 .056 .258* .037 .173 .283* 1
8. Education (low: 1 ! high: 6) 4.00 (.414) .153 .279* .000 .041 .099 .114 .201 1
Note: F female; M male; M, mean; SD standard deviation.
*p .05 (two tailed). **p .01 (two tailed).
11
Table 2. Summary of Simple Regression Analysis for Predicting Support for Peace
Negotiations through Ideology, Controlling for All Other Relevant Variables in Study 1.
Variables B SE B b
Ideology .649 .158 .481**

Age .009 .062 .016
Gender .005 .482 .001
Socioeconomic status .199 .147 .162
Politically engaged .279 .265 .119
Education .252 .585 .046
Religiosity .488 .239 .237*
R2 .436
F 6.402**
Note: SE standard error.
suggesting that accountabilitys effect on these variables was contingent on its

interaction with ideology. Interestingly, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA)
comparison of the proposal support mean by the three ideological groupings (leftists,
centrists, and rightists)11 also indicated that the impact of ideology on political pre-
ferences was not significant in the control condition, F(2,33) 1.62, p .21, and
was only significant in the manipulation (accountability) condition, F(2,33)
16.83, p .00. A Scheffe post hoc test confirmed that in the control condition, there
was no significant difference between leftists and rightists responses to the pro-
posal (p .28), but that in the accountability condition there was a significant
difference (p .00). Thus, the impact of both ideology and accountability on
political attitudes seemed to be largely contingent on their interaction. Put plainly,
leftists and rightists responded with similar political attitudes in the absence of
accountability, and accountability seemed to not generate changes in political atti-
tudes without accounting for ideological differences among respondents.
AccountabilityIdeology Interaction Effects

We thus turned to test the hypothesized accountability ideology interaction on
support for the proposal. To examine whether and how ideology moderated the
relationship between accountability and support for the proposal, we employed
Hayess (2013) PROCESS regression command (model 1) to test the conditional
effect, R2 .41, F(3,68) 15.53, p .00. Further regression analysis revealed no
significant main effect for ideology (B .37, standard error [SE] .41, t .96,
p .34) on support for the negotiations proposal once the interaction term was included
in the regression. Even more important, the interaction term (accountability ideology)
had a significant effect on support for the proposal (B .77, SE .26, t 2.99, p .00),
indicating that the relationship between accountability and attitudes toward the proposal
was indeed moderated by political ideology.
Wayne et al. 13
Leists
4
Centrists
Righsts
3
1
Control Interview
Figure 1. Means comparison of interaction of ideology and accountability on support for

compromise in study 1.18
A PROCESS analysis of the conditional effects of accountability on support

for the proposal at three different values of political orientation (the mean
([3.56], 1 SD above the mean [4.97], and 1 SD below the mean [2.14]) allowed
us to shed light on the nature of this interaction. This analysis revealed that
among people on the high edge of the ideology measure (1 SD above the mean,
from here on termed leftists), there was a significant relationship between
accountability and support for the negotiations proposal (B 1.62, SE .51,
t 3.16, p .00). This relationship among people around the ideology measures
mean (centrists), however, was not significant (B .52, SE .36, t 1.45, p .15).
Interestingly, for people on the low edge of the ideology measure (1 SD below the
mean, for here on termed rightists), there was also no significant relationship between
accountability and levels of support for the proposal (B .57, SE .52, t 1.10,
p .27; see Figure 1). Thus, the significance of the interaction effect appears to be
largely driven by the polarization of leftists political attitudes under accountability.
Discussion
The first study revealed that the interaction of accountability and ideology signifi-
cantly increased ideological adherence to specific policy preferencesindeed, in its
absence, attitudes toward the proposal were not significantly different between
ideological groups; however, this relationship between accountability and ideol-
ogy was only significant for leftists. Although rightists also showed increased
ideological affinity in the accountability condition, the effect was not significant.
This result raises the possibility that the differences in how rightists and leftists
respond politically to being held accountable may be due to the concept of ideolo-
gical issue ownership. Study 1 explicitly tested an issue owned by the political
left in Israelnegotiations with the Palestiniansand so, accountable leftists may
have felt more social pressure to put their money where their mouth was and
express policy positions more consistent with their proclaimed ideology, when
held accountable. This result therefore indicates that the social pressure for consis-
tency of views may indeed be a primary mechanism in triggering increased ideo-
logical adherence to policy position. Seeking to explore this discrepancy between
rightists and leftists responses to accountability further, we designed study 2 to
test the effect of the ideologyaccountability interaction in distinct political con-
texts and issues.
Study 2
Study 2 was conducted in a similar fashion to study 1, with two notable changes
designed to address the questions highlighted previously. First, study 2 sought to test
whether the accountabilityideology interaction would hold in different contexts uti-
lizing an experimental 2 (high vs. low accountability) 2 (security vs. negotiations)
design that manipulated both levels of accountability and the specific issue at
handsecurity or negotiations. Thus, essentially, study 2 was composed of two
studies conducted simultaneouslyone under a negotiations context and another
under a security context. By using two distinct scenarios in this study, we hoped
to be able to generalize our results across diverse ideological contexts and better
understand the role of issue ownership in this ideologyaccountability interaction.
Also in study 2, we introduced a new dependent variable, designed to test general
preferences for military versus diplomatic solutions to the conflict, rather than support
for minor onetime political compromises. This variable was designed specifically to
position military and diplomatic solutions as opposing choices; participants would
need to privilege one over the other. If the ideologyaccountability interaction signi-
ficantly affects such broad and important political attitudes, we can generalize our
findings more widely to different types of political decisions in conflict contexts.
We hypothesized that, regardless of whether Israeli rightists and Israeli leftists
were presented with a negotiations context or a security context, accountability
would cause participants to skew their policy preferences more in line with their
ideological self-categorization, but that this interaction would only be significant for
leftists in a negotiations context and for rightists in a security context, due to the
perceived ownership of each issue with the political right and left, respectively.
Centrists political attitudes should, again, not shift significantly in either context.
Methodology
Participants. A total of 145 students at the IDC Herzliya (ninety-three males and fifty-
two females), age ranging from twenty-one to fifty (M 26.38, SD 4.74),
Wayne et al. 15
participated in the study and were entered into a raffle to win 200 Israeli shekels for
their participation (approximately US$55).12 The sample was largely secular, with
60.7 percent of the participants identifying themselves as secular, 20.7 percent iden-
tifying themselves as seculartraditional, 11 percent as traditional, and only 5.5 per-
cent as religious or Ultra-Orthodox (an additional 2.1 percent chose not to answer).
Politically, the sample leaned somewhat to the right, with 43.4 percent of the parti-
cipants identifying themselves as belonging to the center-right, right, or the extreme
right; 23.4 percent identifying themselves as centrist; and 32.4 percent as belonging
to the center-left, left, or extreme left.13
Procedure. All participants were handed a survey form in which they were initially
asked to answer a series of demographic questions, including a question regarding
their self-placement on the ideological spectrum from extreme right to extreme
left.14 Participants were then randomly assigned to a control or accountability con-
dition and to a security or negotiations condition, in a 2 2 design, resulting in four
groups: accountabilitynegotiations, controlnegotiations, accountabilitysecurity,
and controlsecurity. In the negotiations scenario, participants were asked to read
a fictional proposal (that they thought was genuine) sent by the Palestinian Authority
to Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu for the renewal of negotiations. This
scenario was the same as in study 1 with some minor alterations, due to changes in
the real-world conflict context from 2012 to 2013. In the security scenario, partici-
pants were asked to read a fictional intelligence report (that they, again, thought was
genuine) from the Israeli Security Agency indicating that the levels of violence and
militancy from Hamas in the Gaza Strip were increasingthat rocket attacks had
increased and that more terrorist attacks or kidnappings were being planned.
After reading the proposal, participants were asked to fill in a battery of questions
regarding their general preference for negotiations versus militancy, the studys
dependent variable. These questions were the same for participants in both scenar-
ios, enabling us to compare responses across contexts. Students then submitted their
questionnaires to the examiners and received a debriefing before leaving the
classroom.
Measures. General support for militancy over compromise was measured by aver-
aging the answers to five questions related to support for the proposal (a .71),
ranked on a six-point Likert-type scale from completely disagree (1) to completely
agree (6). Questions included the items Palestinians are not interested in ending the
conflict peacefully, so there is no point to take seriously the proposals that come
from their leaders, Israel should accept any peace initiative by Palestinians in
order to clarify its commitment to resolving the conflict through negotiations
(reverse), Since the Palestinians understand only force there is no point in negoti-
ations with them, but only use force against them, Only by Israels military power
can guarantee the security, and As a democracy, Israel has a moral duty to resolve
the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians fairly and justly (reverse). A high
score on this scale thus represents more support for militant policies, while a low
score represents more support for diplomatic solutions to the conflict.
Ideological affiliation was assessed by individuals response to the question
What is your political position? Individuals could select extreme right, right, cen-
ter right, center, center left, left, or extreme left. This ideological self-categorization
was asked alongside other demographic questions at the very beginning of the study
so as not to be affected by the manipulation itself.
Demographic measuresin addition to ideology, we measured participants age,
gender, level of political engagement, and religiosity. Because our sample was com-
posed of undergraduate students, education level was not asked in this study, due to
time constraints. As the student population at IDC is also relatively economically
homogenous (middle class) and socioeconomic status was not a predictor in the first
study, this variable was also dropped due to time constraints on the study.
Results
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations among Variables. We examined the means, stan-
dard deviations, and bivariate correlations among the variables, including the
dependent variables, possible control and mediating variables, and demographic
indicators (see Table 3). As hypothesized, levels of support for militancy over
compromise were significantly correlated with political ideology. This correlation
suggests, not surprisingly, that leftists were more inclined to political compromise
and rightists to military action. Further regression analysis revealed that even when
controlling for the effects of all relevant sociopolitical variables (gender, age,
socioeconomic level, political involvement, and educational attainment) on sup-
port for militancy over compromise, ideologys ability to predict support for mili-
tancy over compromise remained significant, model: R2 .49 F(5,134) 26.05, p
.00 and coefficient: b .65, p .00. Level of religiosity was the only other
variable that was significantly related to support for militancy over compromise (b
.13, p .05; see Table 4).
Main Effects. A t-test analysis once more found no main effects of accountability on
mean levels of support for political compromise between the accountability and
control conditions for either the negotiations scenario, accountability: M 3.22,
SD 1.11, and control: M 3.13, SD .85, t(69) 3.77, p .71, or the security
scenario, accountability: M 3.23, SD 1.14, and control: M 2.83, SD .84,
t(72) 1.72, p .09, suggesting that accountabilitys effect on these variables
was again contingent on its interaction with ideology. A one-way ANOVA compar-
ison of mean support for militancy over compromise by the three ideological group-
ings (leftists, centrists, and rightists), also conducted separately for each scenario,
again indicated that the impact of ideology on political preferences was only margin-
ally significant in the control condition, negotiations: F(2,28) 3.15, p .06, and
security: F(2,33) 2.50, p .10, but was significant in the manipulation
Wayne et al. 17
Table 3. Bivariate Correlations, Means, and Standard Deviations of Variables in Study 2.
M (SD) 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Preference for Militancy over 3.10 (1.01) 1

compromise (very dovish [1] !
very militant [6])
2. Age (2150) 26.38 (4.74) .016 1
3. Gender (M1, F2) 1.36 (.48) .035 .113 1
4. Political interest (not at all [1] ! 3.64 (1.04) .085 .079 .144 1
very [6])
5. Ideology (extreme right [1] ! 3.79 (1.39) .697** .087 .024 .153* 1
extreme left [7])
6. Religiosity (not at all [1] ! 1.62 (.94) .361** .105 .105 .026 .344** 1
very [6])
Note: F female; M male; M, mean; SD standard deviation.

Table 4. Summary of Simple Regression Analyses for Predicting Support for Militancy over
Negotiations through Ideology, Controlling for Other Relevant Variables in Study 2.
Variables B SE B b
Ideology .472 .049 .651**

Age .006 .013 .031
Gender .016 .132 .008
Politically engaged .023 .062 .024
Religiosity .138 .071 .121*
R2 .493
F 26.054**
Note: SE standard error.
(accountability) condition, negotiations: F(2,37) 18.94, p .00, and security:

F(2,34) 20.52, p .00. A Scheffe post hoc test further showed that, in the control
condition, there were only marginally significant differences between leftists and
rightists responses to the proposal (negotiations: p .06 and security: p .10) but
that in the accountability condition the differences were significant (negotiations:
p .00 and security: p .00). Thus, the impact of both ideology and accountability
once again seemed to be largely contingent on their interaction. We thus turned to
test the hypothesized accountability ideology interaction.
Interaction Effects. We ran a regression analysis testing the three-way interaction of

ideology condition scenario, finding that the scenario was not significant in
affecting the interaction trend, model: R2 .52, F(7,136) 21.40, p .00, and
coefficient: b .097, p .92. In other words, the accountabilityideology interac-
tion appeared to work similarly for both scenarios, polarizing political attitudes in
both cases. We thus turned to test the hypothesized accountability ideology
interaction for each scenario separately to analyze which ideological groups drove
the interaction effect in each context.
First, we explored the negotiations scenario. To examine whether ideology
moderated the relationship between accountability and preference for militancy
over negotiations, we again employed Hayess (2013) PROCESS regression com-
mand (model 1) to test the conditional effect, R2 .54, F(3,67) 26.44, p .00.
Additional regression analysis revealed no significant main effects for ideology (B
.05, SE .22, t .23, p .82) on preference for militancy over compromise
once controlling for the effects of the interaction term. More important, the anal-
ysis once again supported our hypothesis: the interaction term (accountability
ideology) had a significant effect on support for militancy over compromise
(B .27, SE .13, t 2.15, p .04), indicating that the relationship between
accountability and political attitudes toward militancy or compromise was moder-
ated by political ideology.
A PROCESS analysis of the conditional effects of accountability on support for
militancy over compromise at three different values of political orientation allowed
us to again shed light on the nature of this interaction: this analysis revealed that
among people on the high edge of the ideology measure (5.09, leftists), there was
a marginally significant relationship between accountability and levels of militancy
(B .42, SE .24, t 1.77, p .08).15 This relationship among people around
the ideology measures mean (3.68, centrists), however, was again not significant
(B .04, SE .17, t .22, p .83). Similarly, for people on the low edge
of the ideology measure (2.26, rightists), there was no significant relationship
between accountability and levels of militancy (B .35, SE .25, t 1.39, p
.17; see Figure 2). Thus, it appears that, once more, the significance of the interac-
tion effect appears to be largely driven by changes in leftists political attitudes
under accountability.
Next, we turned to review the security context. We again employed Hayess
(2013) PROCESS command (model 1) to test the conditional effect, R2 .50,
F(3,69) 23.30, p .00. Further regression analysis revealed that, after control-
ling for the effects of the interaction term, there were no significant main effects
for ideology (B .09, SE .22, t .41, p .69) on preference for militancy
versus negotiations. The interaction term (accountability ideology), on the other
hand, had a marginally significant effect on support for militancy over negotiations
(B .25, SE .13, t 1.97, p .053), supporting our hypothesis and indi-
cating that the relationship between accountability and political attitudes toward
militancy or compromise was again moderated by political ideology.
Conducting a PROCESS analysis of the conditional effects of accountability
on support for militancy over negotiations at three different values of political
Wayne et al. 19
4.5
3.5
Leists
3
Centrists
2.5 Righsts
1.5
1
Control Accountability
Figure 2. Means comparison of interaction of ideology and accountability on preference for

militancy over compromise in study 2 (negotiations scenario).
orientation enabled us to again examine the nature of this interaction. This anal-
ysis revealed thatin contrast to the negotiations contextamong people on the
low edge of the ideology measure (2.56, rightists), there was a significant relation-
ship between accountability and levels of militancy (B .61, SE .25, t 2.46,
p .02), whereas, in contrast, there was no significant relationship between
accountability and levels of militancy for leftists (5.28; B .08, SE .24, t
.34, p .73). The relationship among centrists (3.92) was also, again, non-
significant (B .26, SE .17, t 1.54, p .13; see Figure 3). In this context,
we thus see changes in rightists political attitudes under accountability as the
driving force behind the significance of the interaction effect.
Essentially, these results demonstrated that accountability significantly increased
the difference between the espoused political attitudes of rightists and leftists, but
this widening divide was driven by changes within different ideological groups,
depending on the specific conflict context at hand. On issues of negotiation,
accountability primarily polarized leftists support for militant versus diplomatic
political processes, whereas on issues of security, rightists political attitudes were
most polarized.
Discussion
In this study, we used two distinct political scenarios in order to further explore the
issue ownership hypothesis and help generalize our results across different potential
conflict contexts. We hypothesized that regardless of the contextbe it negotiations
or securityaccountability would trigger increased ideological adherence to con-
crete policy preferences among self-identified leftists and rightists. And indeed, in
4.5
3.5
Leists
3
Centrists
2.5 Righsts
1.5
1
Control Accountability
Figure 3. Means comparison of interaction of ideology and accountability on preference for

militancy over compromise in study 2 (security scenario).
both scenarios, the interaction between ideology and accountability produced the same
trend. Namely, accountability caused both rightists and leftists to skew in the direction
of their respective ideological extremes. However, these effects were only significant
for leftists in the negotiations condition and for rightists in the security condition. As
before, centrists did not exhibit any significant changes.
Study 2 again demonstrated that ideology is a powerful moderator of individuals
espoused political preferences when held accountable. By manipulating the context
while keeping the audience constant (the same university professor), study 2 was
able to explore whether it was the issue or the perceived views of the (ambiguous)
audience that affected the expression of political attitudes under accountability. The
differential responses we received in both studiesleftists becoming more leftist in
a negotiations scenario and rightists becoming more rightist in a security scenario
suggest that the changes in participants expressed attitudes were driven more by the
particular issue at hand (and its ownership by the ideological left or right) rather
than by their perception of the audiences views.
These experimental results correspond strongly to the real-world political cli-
mate in Israel today. Namely, support for negotiations with the Palestinians for
a two-state solution is the most important ideological issue for Israeli leftists,
whereas Israeli rightists, on the other hand, tend to frame their most important
issue as protecting national security (Arian and Shamir 2011). Thus, it makes
senseand, in fact, provides support for the proposed mechanism of social desir-
ability under accountabilitythat in a negotiations scenario accountable leftists
feel more socially obligated to take a more stereotypically leftist stance, whereas
in a security scenario, accountable rightists would feel the same need to take a
more stereotypically rightist stance on this issue.
Wayne et al. 21
General Discussion
Judicious public policy agendas that promote compromise and collaboration among cit-
izens of varying ideological groups are of vital importance to the functioning of dem-
ocratic governments and can be particularly important for those in unstable or
divided societies in conflict, such as the one examined in this study. However, a central
challenge of political compromise stems from the inherent conflict between the aspira-
tion to gain consensus for conciliatory policies that limit conflict (and can be practically
implemented) and the ideological fervor and conflicting worldviews that characterize
violent, intractable conflict (as well as other divisive political contexts). As such,
unpacking the potential factors that may encourage political compromise in situations
of violent, ideological conflict is a central challenge for researchers in this field.
The aim of the present study was to test the impact of one such factor in political
decision makingaccountability. Contrary to the idealistic lay impression of
accountability as a universal panacea for encouraging judicious decision making,
we hypothesized that, under the highly ideological circumstances of violent conflict,
the interactive effect of ideology and accountability may trigger a different effect.
Specifically, we hypothesized that, under accountability, individuals would be more
motivated to resort to traditional ideological rationales that they could use to both
maintain an image of consistency and better justify their views on a political prob-
lem to those who are holding them accountable.
These studies have confirmed our hypotheses and produced several important
findings. First, it appears that accountabilityeven the ideal predecisional,
unknown audience form of accountability used in this studydoes not encourage
moderation or pragmatism on important political issues (such as the preference for
military or diplomatic strategies) in conflict. Rather, accountabilitys impact on
political attitudes is contingent on its interaction with ideology and actually seems
to have a polarizing effect on political opinions.
Second, the differential response of leftists and rightists in varying conflict con-
texts offered important insight into the potential motivations guiding citizens
political attitudes under accountability. Namely, individuals attitude polarization
may be attributed to the social goals they associate with accountability in different
political contexts. On issues conceived of as central to their ideological identity,
individuals appear much more likely to have their political attitudes polarized
by accountability. Thus, for leftists, this means espousing much more dovish atti-
tudes in the context of negotiations. In contrast, for rightists, a security context
triggers increased professed support for militant policies. In the absence of cues
as to the audiences views, it appears that individuals focus on projecting ideolo-
gical consistency and clarity on the issues owned by their ideological group in
order to project what they view as a positive, knowledgeable, and consistent self-
image to those holding them accountable.
How exactly the achievement of this social goal altered participants information
processing during decision making is still an important question for future research,
as the present research did not directly test the decision making process that under-
girded this attitude polarization. Leftists and rightists could be responding more
ideologically because they are processing information more deliberatively and cen-
trally, resulting in decisions that are more principled and broadly consistent with
abstract ideals, or they could be engaging in a less deliberative process, relying
on ideological heuristics as an easy cue to project the image of political expertise
and consistency to an observer. Untangling the effects of accountability on this
decision-making process is thus an important direction for future research.
Nevertheless, the question of how exactly accountability affects the expression
of political attitudes in situations of political conflict is critically important, partic-
ularly as lay observers and pundits across the political spectrum clamor for greater
accountability processes in governments and among citizens in countries that are
currently transitioning to democracy and/or attempting to heal internal conflict
within their societies. And although numerous studies have explored the types
of accountability most likely to encourage judicious decision making (see Lerner
and Tetlock [1999] for a review), the impact of these ideal types of accountabil-
ity may be considerably more complicated in political settings. If this model type
of accountability tends to encourage ideological extremity in conflict contexts, the
implications for peacemaking, forming structures of governance, and developing
methods of citizen political participation in emergent (and well-established)
democracies are very significant.16
Theoretical Implications
The results of the current research also contain important theoretical implications. To
start, this is the first research, to our knowledge, that has demonstrated the existence of
an interaction effect between ideology and accountability in political conflicts (outside
of the literature on electoral accountability which, in contrast, addresses the issue of
accountability to an electorate with known views). This research thus adds to the
ongoing debate about the impact of accountability in political decision making.
Although previous research on accountability has focused on what type of
accountability is most effective in encouraging effortful thought, this study has
focused on in what context accountability may have this effect. The results of
this study indicate that even under the ideal conditions of accountability identi-
fied by previous researchers (Lerner and Tetlock 2003), accountability does not
necessarily lead to policy moderation. Rather, respondents resort to more ideo-
logical arguments, behaving in more stereotypically ideological ways than their
counterparts in the control condition. This finding thus contradicts to some
extent the idea that the right type of accountability necessarily contributes
to policy moderation and compromise.
Finally, this study broadens our understanding of the factors that govern the role
of political ideologies in shaping policy preferences, adding to recent work that
introduces motivational processes of ideological polarization (e.g., Jost and Amodio
Wayne et al. 23
2011; Federico and Schneider 2007; Lavine 2002; Jost, Federico, and Napier 2009;
Sulitzeanu-Kenan and Halperin 2012). This current work links ideological motiva-
tions not to internal personal differences but rather to an external factoraccount-
abilitywhich motivates individuals to maintain the image of consistency with
their ideological belief systems and their policy choices to an outside observer.
Thus, this work has introduced another potential moderator of the relationship
between ideology and political preferences.
Applied Implications
This study also suggests important practical implications for the role of accountabil-
ity in shaping political preferences. To begin, the results of this study suggest that
practitioners should use caution in advocating accountability as a universal factor for
encouraging moderation and cooperation in political processes. Accountability may
work to hinder self-critical decision making and moderate policy choices, instead
encouraging citizens to rely on familiar, more readily defensible ideological argu-
ments when formulating their political attitudes.
As has often been demonstrated in the electoral accountability literature, account-
ability may also have the effect of polarizing elected officials and inhibiting
moderation and compromise, even if they are unclear of the views of their political
audience. Moreover, to the extent that leaders are more or less accountable at different
times (e.g., before or after elections), leaders may also behave in more or less ideolo-
gical ways depending on the specific time period, indicating that those who seek
compromise should potentially pursue it only in the aftermath of an election when
leaders may feel less accountable and, therefore, more ideologically flexible.
Finally, this study, conducted in the context of one of the worlds most intense
intergroup conflicts, offers potential avenues for scholars studying conflict resolu-
tion. For example, conflict resolution practitioners may want to hesitate before
advocating for transparency in diplomatic processes between leaders of conflicting
groupsthis transparency and accountability may lead to increased adherence to
their respective standpoints and limit potential opportunities for compromise. In
contrast, the potential of accountability to encourage self-proclaimed doves to
align their political preferences more with their ideological belief systems may
encourage peace advocates seeking new ways to engage and mobilize would-be
peace activists in support of their cause.
Limitations and Future Studies

This study has its limitations. To begin, as two relatively small experimental studies
conducted among a student sample, more evidence is needed to conclude that this
phenomena truly exists in the real world. Broadening experimental work to
include larger, more diverse samples representative of the overall population would
also increase the statistical power of the results.17 Future studies should also focus on
different geographical and political contexts in an effort to more thoroughly estab-

lish the types of situations in which this model is applicable.
Moreover, this study only utilized one specific type of accountability, evaluation,
to test the effect of accountability on political preferences. There are many types of
accountability that may cause respondents to behave in starkly different waysthe
presence of another (e.g., Zajonc 1965), identifiability (e.g., Reicher and Levine
1994), and reason-giving (e.g., Simonson and Nowlis 2000; for a comprehensive
review, see Lerner and Tetlock 1999). Prospective studies should study these types
of accountability more closely, determining whether there are indeed situations
when accountability can lead to the development and support of moderate political
policies designed to embrace the ideological center and reduce conflict.
Conclusion
Violent intergroup conflict is one of the most pressing issues facing scholars and practi-
tioners of diplomacy and government today. The potent role of conflict ideologies in
fueling and prolonging these conflicts all too often contributes to a cycle of mistrust,
aggression, and polarization that is hard to break (Bar-Tal 2007). Thus, exploring the
potential factors that can change these dynamics, encourage reflective deliberation
by political actors, and perhaps lead to compromise for peace is a major challenge for
scholars of conflict, security, and international relations today. Although this research
demonstrates that caution should be used in advocating one such factor, accountability,
as a universal panacea for conflict resolution, accountability may still provide an impor-
tant impetus for conflict parties to reach a settlement in certain situations. Discovering in
what specific contexts accountability may indeed play a role in encouraging societies in
conflict to compromise for peace remains a central question for future studies.
Authors Note
All data and syntax files containing all findings from both studies are available for replication
purposes alongside the electronic version of this article on the Journal of Conflict Resolution
website.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
Notes
1. This perspective is supported by the idea of the compromise effectthe tendency for a
product or policy to gain attractiveness among accountable individuals simply because it
Wayne et al. 25
becomes a middle option in a choice seta satisficing option that satisfies the most cri-
teria or people (Simonson 1989).
2. An important caveat is required here: many accountability studies have relied on various
normative constructs as to what constitutes an improvement in decision-making pro-
cesses or outcomes. Specifically, these studies have typically emphasized the importance
of accuracy or efficiency in decision making. In political contexts, these normative judg-
ments as to what constitutes a better process or outcome are more subjective. Should
accuracy be sacrificed for efficiency in time-sensitive political crises? Is a decision that
leads to violence necessarily worse than one that maintains peace? Is moderation or com-
promise always better than ideological consistency or steadfastness? The answer is less
clear and may depend on the specific political context. Thus, the present study, recogniz-
ing these issues, does not make normative claims as to the relative merit of leftist, rightist,
or centrist political attitudes. Rather, we discuss several potential implications of our
studys results for conflict societies.
3. There is however, a crucial distinction between what constitutes decision-making pro-
cesses and decision-making outcomes. While good decision-making processes have been
shown to be strongly related to good decision outcomes (Schafer and Crichlow 2002), the
two are not strictly collinear. In other words, a good unbiased, thorough decision-
making process can still lead to a bad outcome (or bad policy, in political contexts), and
likewise, bad problematic decision processes can precede a positive outcome. Thus, to
the extent that accountability may alter the process of decision making, this may not
necessarily lead to different decision outcomes. This study focuses explicitly on testing
the decision outcome (i.e., the expression of ideologically consistent or divergent political
attitudes) under accountability rather than the process. Future studies designed to test
aspects of the decision-making process such as information processing tendencies are
important to gain a fuller picture of accountabilitys affect on political decision making.
4. This conception of accountability parallels the results of other nuanced accountability
theoriesfor example, that transparency will not lead to accountability among the
shameless (Fox 2007) and its effect on decision making will depend on beliefs about
the value of others opinion (Foyle 1999).
5. Indeed, in recent years, many studies have begun to move away from the emphasis on
political information or sophistication as the main source of ideological affiliation,
emphasizing instead these strong motivational components of ideology. For example,
previous research on ideological affinities had found that only a subset of citizens, com-
posed of the minority of citizens who actually possess political sophistication and knowl-
edge, routinely structures their political attitudes around a central ideological belief
system (Bennett 1988; Converse 1962; Luskin 1987; Zaller 1992). Converse (1962) even
famously claimed that ordinary citizens fundamentally lacked the logical consistency and
coherence that would be expected of an ideological belief system. From this perspective,
the ability to utilize structured ideological belief systems was a problem of information
and ability (Converse et al. 1961; Carpini and Keeter 1996; Sniderman, Brody, and Tet-
lock 1993). John Jost (2006), for example, argues that individuals are motivated to select
their ideological belief systems to the extent that these ideologies meet important
psychological needs for them. These needs are a psychological resistance to or desire for
change and the acceptance of or opposition to inequality.
6. In other words, it may be that political attitudes in this context form a type of prior
decision. Thus, our accountability may never reach the ideal standard of being
predecisional, causing participants to engage in defensive bolstering rather than preemp-
tive self-criticism, as predicted by Lerner and Tetlock (1999).
7. Two participants were omitted from our analyses because they did not fill in their
ideological affiliations, leaving a sample of seventy-two participants.
8. The study group was composed of thirty-nine self-declared rightists who classified from
center-right to extreme right, thirteen centrists, and twenty leftists who classified them-
selves as center-left or left (there were no self-classified extreme leftists in this sample).
9. Participants were not told the fictional professors political views. However, participants
may have sought to guess the professors views based on his career as a professor in Israel
(where the academia historically leans left) and tailor their views to his perceived views,
consistent with shared reality theory (Hardin and Higgins 1996). However, this issue
appears to have been minimized in this study because only a portion of study participants
subsequently expressed more left-wing political attitudes, which would mean that either
only a portion of the participants were swayed by the perceived views of the audience due
to his academic affiliation or that the views of the audience were indeed unclear to many
study participants.
10. Indeed, the difference between the mean ideological affiliations of the control and
accountable groups was nonsignificant, demonstrating that the accountable group did not
respond to the ideology question differently than the control group, control mean 3.72;
manipulation mean 3.39, t(70) 1.00, p .320.
11. Leftists were coded as respondents who selected extreme left, left, or center left
as their ideological self-categorization. Centrists selected center. Rightists were those
who selected extreme right, right, or center right.
12. One participant was omitted from our analyses because the individual did not fill in their
ideological affiliation, leaving a sample of 144.
13. The study group was composed of sixty-three self-declared rightists who classified from
center-right to extreme right, thirty-four centrists, and forty-seven leftists who classified
themselves as center-left or extreme leftist.
14. This was in order to make sure that ideological self-categorization was not affected by
the specific conflict scenario given. And indeed, there were no significant differences in
ideological affiliation between the two contexts (negotiations mean: 3.67 and security
mean: 3.92, p .30) or between the manipulation and control (control mean: 3.94 and
manipulation mean: 3.68, p .25).
15. The reason this conditional effect was not fully significant in this study (as opposed to
study 1) may be due to the smaller sample size we used in study 2.
16. Particularly since, in real-world political contexts, this gold standard of accountability is
seldom reached. Government actors and citizens often know the views of the audience to
which they are accountable, they often are not held accountable for the decision-making
process itself, and so on.
Wayne et al. 27
17. Although several recent experimental studies have found no fundamental differences in
responses between student and adult respondents (Druckman 2004; Kuhberger 1998; Marcus
1995). Moreover, the fact that these studies were conducted among citizens living in the
midst of active conflict helps increase their external validity. Additionally, the Israeli student
population is typically much more diverse in terms of age than are American undergraduates,
as demonstrated by the fact that our student sample ranged in age from twenty-two to fifty.
18. For visualization, respondents are divided into three ideological groupings: leftists
(extreme left: seven, left: six, and center left: five), centrists (center: four), and rightists
(center right: three, right: two, and extreme right: one).
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Article

Journal of Conflict Resolution

broader context of accountability, ideology, and conflict decision-making research

Accountability and Decision Making

different types of accountability alter the decision-making processes and behavioral

Ideology and Political Attitudes

The AccountabilityIdeology Interaction Hypothesis

ambiguous, anonymous circumstances in order to project a self-image that they

The ContextThe IsraeliPalestinian Conflict

The Current Research

negotiation scenario under accountable and nonaccountable circumstances. Study 2

assigned to the control condition and thirty-six individuals to the accountability

1. Support for political compromise (low: 1 ! high: 10) 4.15 (1.95) 1

Ideology .649 .158 .481**

suggesting that accountabilitys effect on these variables was contingent on its

AccountabilityIdeology Interaction Effects

Figure 1. Means comparison of interaction of ideology and accountability on support for

A PROCESS analysis of the conditional effects of accountability on support

Table 3. Bivariate Correlations, Means, and Standard Deviations of Variables in Study 2.

1. Preference for Militancy over 3.10 (1.01) 1

Note: F female; M male; M, mean; SD standard deviation.

Ideology .472 .049 .651**

(accountability) condition, negotiations: F(2,37) 18.94, p .00, and security:

Interaction Effects. We ran a regression analysis testing the three-way interaction of

Figure 2. Means comparison of interaction of ideology and accountability on preference for

Figure 3. Means comparison of interaction of ideology and accountability on preference for

Limitations and Future Studies

different geographical and political contexts in an effort to more thoroughly estab-

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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