...What’s the Matter with Polarization? A Reaction to: Political Polarization in the American Public Morris P. Fiorina and Samuel J. Abrams In the world of political science, theories often lack substantial evidence or support to become conclusive. There are nearly always loopholes critics can find in conjectures, and as time progresses, politics can change to falsify or clarify established findings. In the past ten years, the idea of political polarization in the American public has become something that political scientists are obsessed with, yet something that is still puzzling to figure out. Is polarization defined by voters’ preferences, or by their choices? By specific issues, or by party identification? To find whether such a division exists, there must be a way to measure it, and evidence strong enough to support it. Here lies the problem. As Morris Fiorina and Samuel Abrams do in their work, Political Polarization in the American Public, researchers search for ways to prove popular polarization exists, and struggle. With the lack of a universal definition of polarization, the changing and fairly unpredictable nature of the human voter, and even with the proven existence of elite polarization, the existence of true political polarization will never be determined. When attempting to prove polarization, it is much easier to use the choices voters make in elections and determine from that information whether polarization is present. While easier, the...
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...The polarization of the American political system has received tremendous interest from political scientists. Many longtime political observers, some of whom thought stronger parties would improve American politics, now decry that the parties are out of control. Levendusky in his book argues that “polarization fails to capture” what is actually happening in lives of ordinary citizens. Instead, he argues that “sorting” is a better term which captures recent changes in the American electorate. He believes “elite polarization” has caused this sorting. People are simply getting better at aligning their ideological issues and preferences. Although a good book, it does not clearly establish the mechanism behind elite driven mass sorting. An abortion example clearly highlights what is happening with the US electorate. The distance between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of abortion is evidence of a polarized public. Democrats are now clearly the party of abortion rights and Republicans the party of abortion restriction. Members of the two parties are polarized on the issue of abortion so clearly that we would expect our elected officials to mirror this mass polarization and refuse to compromise on abortion. This shows...
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...in America is based on polarization between the two major political parties: Republican (red states) and Democratic (blue states) Parties. Due to the presidential election results, there’s a division between the states that led to battleground. The "colors" of these states will not change. "While much "red and blue" ink has been spilled over whether elite polarization is mirrored by the public, existing research provides no consensus when it comes to answering this question. On the one hand, some scholars argue that if citizens take cues from party elites—as recent research suggests they do—then they should come to resemble party elites by becoming more ideologically oriented partisans" (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2008; Carsey & Layman, 2006; Hetherington, 2001). James Wilson, a political science...
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...This feign of politics being a battle fought between those on either side, with the moderate middle becoming a no-man’s-land, is known by many to be political polarization. This polarization of politics creates countless inhibitions upon Americans seeking to be apart of the democratic process by inciting feelings of isolation if they hold a belief that does not cater to either extreme side of politics; in lieu of continuing to defend their beliefs not held by either side, individuals are more likely to denounce politics as a whole on account of feeling marginalized. This phenomenon betrays the cultural aspect of politics created by philosophers to empower the common man, by making him choose to subscribe to a set of ideals he may not entirely believe in. To mitigate someone’s voice into a contribution to a voting bloc is to dilute their humanity to the result on a ballot, further muddying political waters and causing peer pressure to support a certain party. This burden has slowly leaked into mainstream pop culture in America, extending the means by which Americans are being polarized. Pseudo-intellectual political talk show hosts will quip at the stupidity of their opposition, while the Parthenon of Twitter will tirelessly stream a fallacy of policy that demands support, leaving...
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...I agree that requiring Americans to vote is un-American. If one does not want to vote they should not have to. The first reason on why I agree would be a democracy cant be strong if its citizenship is weak. The second reason on why I agree is if some regularly vote while others don’t, officials are likely to give greater weight to participants. And lastly my third reason on why I agree is that low voter turnouts pushes American politics toward increased polarization. The first reason why I agree would be a democracy can’t be strong if its citizenship is weak. According to the article “Telling Americans to Vote, or Else” By William A. Galston “American citizenship is attenuated — strong on rights, weak on responsibilities.” Citizenship is what...
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...Political parties are a necessary evil. Even though parties place people into tiny, little boxes with labels, they also bring Americans together to standardize beliefs and unite us to become stronger. Political parties create a connection between politics and society. The parties speak for a particular set of standards or values and represent those with the same mindset. Political parties also recruit candidates to run for various forms of office. Without the use of parties we would have an unenthusiastic country, disinterested and uninvolved in our nation's politics. Finally, political parties give us a voice. With 8.406 million people in New York state alone, it's difficult to make your voice heard. Parties are the go between that allow us...
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...In class, we discussed how media impacts the perception of polarization which supports today’s reading, going further into depth about the causes of polarization and how the media impacts people’s views on red and blue states. Chapter three in Culture War? says the political difference between red and blue states in 2000 and 2004 is smaller than assumed because the ideological difference between Democrats and Republicans differs by only 10-20%. (page 34). This is partly due to the media’s influence. Figure 3.9 on page 47 shows that people’s disposition did not change much from 2000 to 2004, where Democrats are common in both red and blue states. Only 1 out of 5 people wished for a unicameral government in the 2000 presidential election, meaning that the people may have similar interests regardless of whether or not a state is considered red or blue....
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...(Abramowitz 1995) vi. Why it worked a. Funneled money to needy campaigns (Abramowitz 1995) b. Stalled Democratic legislative initiatives ineffective (Jacobson 1996) c. Forced Democrats in competitive districts to retire (Jacobson 1996) D. Results of election II. Why was the 1994 Election a surprise? A. Conventional signals suggested nothing was out of the ordinary (Balz & Brownstein 1996; Campbell 1997) B. Inadequate models (Busch 1995) i. Not precise enough a. No measure for levels of animosity towards Clinton b. No measure of apathy towards Democrats ii. Too precise a. No attention to actual concerns b. Changing morals iii. Difficulty in accounting for Perot supporters in 1992 (Campbell 1997; Connelly & Pitney 1994) C. Convention of all politics being “local” (Jacobson 1996) D. Suppression of realignment (Campbell 1997) i. Suppressed by the strangle hold of Democrats in the South ii. The gains Republicans should’ve made there but didn’t because of weak challengers obscured academic understanding of electoral behavior III. Explanations A. Disaffection with Government (Balz & Brownstein 1996; Jacobson 1996) Toffey 1 i. Lowered trust (Klinkner 1996) a. Lowered steadily since LBJ in 1964 b. Contributed to by Vietnam, Watergate, and various other scandals ii. Mobilized conservatives/apathetic liberals a. Court vs. Country: against the status quo...
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...http://whynationsfail.com/ Democracy, What Is It Good For? [pic]Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson In an earlier post, we reported on our research joint with Suresh Naidu and Pascual Restrepo, “Democracy, Redistribution and Inequality”, which showed very limited effects of democracy on inequality. So one would be excused for paraphrasing Edwin Starr’s famous song and Ian Morris’s forthcoming book, War! What Is It Good for?, and ask “democracy, what is it good for?” Certainly not economic growth, most would reason. This conclusion is based on a consensus engulfing both academia and the popular press that democracy is at its best irrelevant for growth, and perhaps even a hindrance. For example, Tom Friedman wrote in the pages of The New York Times: One-party nondemocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century,” Friedman wasn’t making this up. Robert Barro, who has written several papers on the topic, argued in his book Getting it Right: Markets and Choices in a Free Society: More political rights do not have an effect on growth… The first lesson is that democracy is not the key to economic growth. A recent survey of the recent literature similarly concludes: The net effect of democracy on growth performance cross-nationally over the...
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...time, almost twenty years later, the shutdown of 2013 resulted because, in the words of current President Barack Obama, “one faction, of one party, in one house of Congress, in one branch of government [...] didn’t like one law” (Bruce). This faction’s members highly opposed Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Art, also known as Obamacare, believing it to be unconstitutional. While Obamacare is now undergoing much debate by both Republicans and Democrats despite its approval back in 2010, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives held the American budget as hostage in order to delay the Act which unnecessarily furloughed thousands of federal workers, caused economic difficulties, and potentially legitimized extortion. While some would argue that it was reasonable, the sixteen day long government shutdown was an unnecessary one instigated by a small group of rich citizens and was forced upon the American public in order to defund the Affordable Care Act (which, ironically, was not even affected by the shutdown as its online marketplaces went live, with trouble, unfortunately, at...
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...Radio Host Diane Rehm said simply that civil discourse represents “our ability to have conversation about topics about which we disagree, and our ability to listen to each other’s perspectives” and that this dialogue begins “at home” (2). With empirical research linking incivility with “reduced trust in and legitimacy of… government, reduced capacity… to engage in reasoned discussion without emotional manipulation, extreme political polarization, the impossibility...
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...AMERICAN POLITICS AND THE MEDIA A love story The impact of the media on American politics has several different outlets. Today people have a variety of choices in where they choose to get their news from, they can use the internet, evening news locally or internationally, and even read the newspaper. No matter the source they choose they still get a “version” of the story. The media is a force to be reckoned with for politics because it seems that the more money the Politicians have the more influence they have. What we see on television is not real, on some level it is all fabricated. From the set to the hair and make-up we see what they want us to see, and it’s no different for the stories the media chooses to highlight as the important topic. Politics is an organization of professional manipulation of the masses and will continue to be just that until people can make their own choices. Unfortunately for politicians...
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...February 2012, Vol. 49, No. 1, pp. 92-99. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmr.10.0196 The authors in this study investigate the effecting of advertising in the media bias, the marketers evaluate the size and composition of the difference outlets of the readership when they making advertising choices. They also demonstrate their right target market with the advertising supplements subscription fees and it may serve as a polarizing or contingent on the extent of distinctiveness among advertisers to readers who have difference preference in politics. Each advertiser will have to choose a single outlet for placing their ad when manifoldness is large and the greater of polarize rises compare to when media outlet relies on subscription fees only for revenue. If the distinctive is small, advertiser chooses multiple outlets and the polarization results are reduced. Media bias and advertising: Evidence from a German car magazine (2014). Dewenter, Ralf; Heimeshoff, Ulrich (2014). DICE Discussion Paper, No. 132, ISSN 2190‐9938 ( online). Retrieved from http://fgvwl.hsu-hh.de/wp-vwl This paper analyzing the impact of automobile reviews in manufacturer's advertising in a German car magazine to investigate the possibility of media bias. They believe difference media bias arises because difference audiences have difference effect on two-sided-markets. By using two-step procedure, they...
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...been prevalent in societies where there exist differences in beliefs, cultural settings and more specifically a way of life. They are prevalent in the American society today, as seen in recent conflicts over certain issues such as gay marriages and abortion. As a part of my explanation to the aliens, there is a need to go back in history and assess how the differences rose and how they have influenced the modern day perceptions of the key national matters. In the US and the UK, the cultural wars are commonly as a result of the differences in the settings of the traditionalists and the conversationalists. In essence, the differences in the conservative and the progressive values has been the main bone of contention between these two different groups. The root of the differences can be traced to way back in the 1920s, when the rural and urban cultures had an evident conflict. There then followed immigration of people from different continents into America for several decades, causing further culture wars. The differences have always taken a center stage in the various debates especially those touching the issues of the history of public schools and the delivery of the science curriculum in the US and the UK. The realignment and the polarization that took place in the 1990s played a huge role in transforming the modern politics, economics as well as religion. In his 1991 publication, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, James Hunter touches on a couple of issues that...
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...Previous research has shown that individuals who are highly conservative are more likely to hold negative perceptions of African-Americans and other minorities. Furthermore, racial antipathy affects the way individuals perceive Barack Obama. In light of recent trends, this study tested whether individuals who identify themselves as Republicans are substantially more likely to maintain negative racial attitudes. The study also investigated whether white Americans are more likely than other racial groups to harbor racial prejudices and disapprove of Barack Obama. Results from this study indicated that racial resentment plays a significant role in contemporary politics. Data from between-subjects ANOVA and correlational analysis suggested that the Democratic Party and Republican Party are polarized in regards to racial issues. Moreover, conservative whites are the most likely racial group to hold racial prejudices against African-Americans. Finally, disapproval of President Obama is highly associated with high levels of negative racial stereotypes. Keywords: race, antipathy, conservatism, prejudices, Obama Is Racial Antipathy Increasing? The Polarizing Effect of Obama’s Presidency In 2008, Barack Obama became the first African-American to become President of the United States. His election marked a pivotal turning point in American politics. To millions, Obama’s election signaled the start of a post-racial America. The country was infused with euphoria as citizens from...
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