The Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems
The Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems explains political ideology as an expression of the mind’s evolved capacity for tracking and forming alliances. Proposed by David Pinsof, David O. Sears, and Martie Haselton in 2023, Alliance Theory holds that political beliefs function to signal allegiance to allies and support them during conflicts with rivals. On this account, political ideologies are shaped by cooperative and antagonistic relationships in a society, and by cognitive biases that selectively moralize, justify, or oppose issues in ways that advance coalitional interests.
Alliance Theory departs from accounts in political and moral psychology that attribute ideological differences to stable underlying values or traits. Instead, it proposes that political belief systems stem from the structure of historically-contingent alliances, and predicts that these systems—whether liberal or conservative—will shift in accordance with coalitional interests and exhibit inconsistent values and double standards This prediction follows from the theory’s functional logic: if political beliefs are driven by coalitional interests, then ideological commitments and prescriptions will be applied selectively depending on who they benefit or harm.
Background and theory
Alliance Theory was developed to explain why people’s political attitudes cluster into ideologies that often contain contradictions. Research in political science shows that most Americans do not hold consistent political beliefs. Alliance Theory argues that these inconsistencies are a predictable consequence of motivations to competitively advantage one's allies at the expense of rivals. For example, polls show that Americans often endorse principles of free speech, equality, or respect for authority when doing so benefits allied individuals or groups, but reject those same principles when they benefit political opponents.
Inferring and forming alliances
Alliance Theory proposes that people possess evolved psychological mechanisms that monitor a variety of social cues to track shifting cooperative and antagonistic relationships, and to form alliances. People are more likely to coordinate with those who share their beliefs, customs, or social markers, because similarity indicates shared interests and a predictable basis for cooperation. People also view others as better potential allies when they share the same allies and enemies, because shared patterns of allegiance and animosity make a partner’s behavior easier to predict, lowers the chance of conflict, and allows more stable coalitions to form. People are also more inclined to support individuals or groups that facilitate their goals and oppose those who impede their goals.
Coalitions frequently form between ethnic, religious, occupational, and cultural groups. People can thus form alliances with groups they do not belong to, such as white liberals who express allegiance to black Americans, or resent groups that they do belong to, such as low-income white people who feel animosity toward high-income white people.
Victim, perpetrator, and attribution biases
Alliance Theory describes three systematic tendencies that signal allegiance to allied individuals and groups, mobilize collective action, and justify favorable treatment of a particular person or group:
- Victim biases exaggerate the severity and extent of harms inflicted on allies by rivals.
- Perpetrator biases downplay harms inflicted on rivals by allies, and emphasize mitigating circumstances that protect allies from blame.
- Attribution biases credit allies for their successes and excuse their failures, while doing the reverse for rivals.
These biases can create conditions where both sides in a conflict come to see themselves as justified and threatened, while viewing the opposing side as immoral and dangerous.
Alliance Theory leverages these biases to explain why liberals and conservatives in the United States endorse distinct and often contradictory positions. Among conservatives and Republicans, these tendencies are reflected in support for allied groups such as white Americans, Christians, police officers, and the U.S. military. For instance, conservatives are more inclined to endorse or excuse controversial actions by the U.S. military while judging comparable actions by foreign militaries more harshly. In domestic politics, conservatives frequently portray police officers and white Americans as being treated unfairly, and attribute disadvantages faced by working-class white Americans to external forces such as globalization, immigration, or “reverse discrimination.” By contrast, conservatives are less likely than liberals to view discrimination against black Americans (a Democrat-allied group) as a pressing problem or to endorse reparations for slavery.
Liberals and Democrats show parallel patterns to conservatives and Republicans. Democrats are more likely to interpret actions affecting allied groups such as black Americans, women, and LGBTQ individuals as discriminatory or unjust. They also tend to judge transgressions by Democrat politicians and allied groups more leniently than equivalent transgressions by Republicans or conservative-allied groups. When evaluating moral dilemmas, experiments show that liberals are more likely to endorse sacrificing one individual to save many when the harmed individual had a stereotypical white last name (a rival-coded group member), but were less likely to do so when the individual had a stereotypical black last name (an ally-coded group member). Liberals are also more likely to attribute negative outcomes to character flaws when the individuals involved are conservatives or Republican-allied groups, but are less likely to do so when evaluating liberals or Democrat-allied groups.
Comparing alternative explanations
Scholars have proposed several frameworks to explain ideological differences. Alliance Theory incorporates many of the same empirical findings but interprets them through a different causal lens, which leads to contrasting predictions.
Intolerance
A common view in political psychology suggests that conservatives are generally more prejudiced toward outgroups than liberals. Alliance Theory, by contrast, predicts that conservatives’ negative attitudes toward groups associated with the political left (e.g., atheists, feminists, black Americans) should be roughly equal in magnitude to liberals’ negative attitudes toward groups associated with the political right (e.g., Christian fundamentalists, police officers, Republicans), because these attitudes stem from the same coalitional psychology.
Supporting this contention, a growing body of research shows that liberals and conservatives express comparable levels of intolerance and prejudice toward political opponents (and their opponents' allies). Likewise, liberals and conservatives both view themselves as being more tolerant and less hostile than their ideological counterparts.
Authoritarianism
Moral Foundations Theory suggests that conservatives are more deferential to authority and are more motivated to enforce social order. Alliance Theory instead predicts that respect for authority is conditional, such that partisans defer to authority figures who are allied with their coalition and distrust authority figures who are allied with their rivals.
In line with this prediction, conservatives express more respect for military and religious leaders whereas liberals express more respect for civil rights leaders and climate scientists. Both sides show roughly equal deference to politically neutral authorities, contradicting claims of ideological asymmetry.
Egalitarianism
Moral Foundations Theory also suggests that liberals are more committed to equality than conservatives. But Alliance Theory argues that egalitarian rhetoric often functions to support allied groups rather than reflecting a stable preference for equality.
Supporting this claim, Alliance Theory cites evidence that shows partisan differences in egalitarianism shrink or disappear when equality is measured without reference to specific groups, and that people—whether liberal or conservative—selectively support inequality when it benefits their allies, but oppose inequality when it benefits their rivals.
Critiques
Alliance Theory prompted a series of invited commentaries that raised questions about its scope, normative implications, and testability. The authors replied to these critiques in a formal response.
Several commentators argue that the theory risks over-extending a coalitional explanation of ideology, noting that values, personality traits, identities, institutions, and long-standing worldviews may shape coalitions as much as coalitions shape beliefs. Relatedly, some cautioned that moral emotions and commitments may have partially independent dynamics, and that treating all moral disagreement as strategic could blur important distinctions between genuine moral concern and coalition-serving rhetoric. Some also worried that the framework might imply a kind of moral relativism, or moral equivalence between opposing coalitions, by portraying both sides as equally biased in support of their allies.
In their response, the authors emphasize that Alliance Theory does not deny the reality or importance of morality. Rather, the theory presupposes a shared moral psychology: partisans largely agree on moral values (e.g., fairness, harm, authority), but deploy those values selectively in ways that favor their allies and disfavor their rivals. On this view, moral values, traits, and cultural narratives are inputs and markers within an alliance-tracking system, rather than being replaced by coalitional motivations. The authors also point out that Alliance Theory is intended as a design-level explanation of why certain patterns of judgment recur, and is not a claim that individuals consciously optimize coalitional interests or that all political reasoning is insincere.
Some commentators argued that ideological inconsistencies can be understood without invoking coalitional psychology and that the evidence does not uniquely support an alliance-based account. Others suggest that the theory needs more precise, falsifiable hypotheses and clearer demonstrations of what it explains beyond existing models.
In reply, the authors argue that Alliance Theory yields novel, testable predictions, such as roughly symmetrical patterns of dislike and discrimination between liberals and conservatives, selective egalitarianism that shifts when the groups that benefit are reversed, and double standards that track the structure of alliances. At the same time, the authors stress that the framework “does not assume—nor preclude—any psychological differences between liberals and conservatives”; instead, asymmetries in traits or values themselves require explanation, and are explained in terms of underlying alliance structures.