Arkansas Tech University The Culture Wars & Political Polarization in Perspective

This analysis finds significant ideological polarization in the mass public, significant ideological polarization among party elites and party identifiers, a growing divide between party identifiers in the mass public, and a strong linear trend in partisan and ideological polarization over time. Furthermore, there is evidence that political elites are responsive to perturbations in mass ideological beliefs and there is strong evidence of a recursive relationship between the ideology of party identifiers and that of party elites.

The story Fiorina gives us where elites polarize irrespective of mass public attitudes simply doesn’t hold water. It doesn’t make sense in a world where electorates are rational and responsive, as a unilateral shift to the poles of the electoral distribution would lead to Downsian party marginalization. And indeed, we find evidence that legislators are cognizant of the fact they must face the voters and are knowledgeable of the fact that those voters have become more ideologically polarized. Rationalizations offered to explain elite non-responsiveness, such as Fiorina’s theory that elites anticipate ideological challenges from the poles in primaries, fundamentally detach the elected official from his or her interest in re-election (as opposed to standing for election, or receiving interest group benefits, or rewarding partisans, etc.). The argument does not merely suffer from theoretical problems, but also an unresponsive electorate is incongruent with apparent aggregate rationality in terms of short-term effects on elections, increasing homogenization of districts tracking with increased elite polarization, and the effectiveness of political advertising campaigns. The evidence suggests that voters are paying attention to some signals from the political environment and that they hold officials accountable in elections. And while district polarization may account for polarization in the House, it does not explain polarization among candidates for offices with constituencies at higher levels of aggregation.

I find that partisan elite polarization is recursively related to partisan mass polarization. While it is certainly true that elites attempt to influence the mass public through the framing and emphasis of certain issues, it is just as true that elites strive to detect those issues which have become salient to their partisan constituents and shape their position-taking accordingly. Scholars examining the factors of polarization in American politics miss half of the story when ignoring the influence that shifts in the mass electorate have on elite behavior. Electorates change, they change in comprehensible ways, the issues and opinions of aggregate electorates shift sometimes independent of elite preferences, and these shifts produce shifts in electoral behavior. As a result, the optimum ideological disposition for a Republican or Democratic party elite has changed over time. And that shift has been decidedly towards the poles and not the center.

*MHI reported in Table 1.1 is for 2007.