How Polarization Begets Polarization: Ideological Extremism in the US Congress
How Polarization Begets Polarization: Ideological Extremism in the US Congress
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Abstract
Extreme polarization in American politics—and especially in the US Congress—is perhaps the most confounding political phenomenon of our time. This book connects polarization in Congress and polarization in the electorate within an ever-intensifying feedback loop. The loop is powered by the discipline exerted by the respective political parties on their Congressional members and district candidates, and maintained by the voters in each Congressional district who must choose between the alternatives offered. These alternatives are today just as extreme in competitive districts as in lopsided ones. Tight national party discipline produces party delegations in Congress that are each ideologically narrowly distributed but are widely separated from one another. As district constituencies become more polarized, with each side egged on by activists, parties are further motivated to move past a threshold and appeal to their respective bases rather than to voters in the political center. Parties with clearly differentiated platforms—once thought to be a desirable goal—have indeed become a reality, but these parties are now feuding camps. What resolution might there be? Could a new reform effort eventually emerge from the current altercation, just as the Progressive Era slowly emerged from the Gilded Age? Could an asymmetry develop in the partisan constraints, which would lead to ascendancy of the center? Or might a new and overriding issue generate a cross-cutting dimension that could open the door to a new politics? Only the future will tell.
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Front Matter
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Part I Where Did Polarization Come from and Why Is It Getting Worse?
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Part II Consequences of Polarization
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End Matter
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Appendix to Chapter 1
Literature Review on Causes of Polarization
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Appendix to Chapter 2
The Party-Constraint Model
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Appendix to Chapter 3
Relation between Candidate and District Ideology: Statistical and Theoretical Analyses
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Appendix to Chapter 4
Components of Legislative Polarization
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Appendix to Chapter 5
Derivations for the Appeal-to-the-Base Model
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Appendix to Chapter 6
Derivations Relating to Chamber and Party Medians
- Bibliography
- Index
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Appendix to Chapter 1
Literature Review on Causes of Polarization
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