Red and Blue America

by Kieran Healy on April 25, 2004

Via “Kevin Drum”:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_04/003769.php comes this comment from political scientist “Hans Noel”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39044-2004Apr24?language=printer, quoted in the Washington Post:

bq. “Most people say they are ‘moderate,’ but in fact the country is polarized around strong conservative and liberal positions.” [Noel said, and the article continues] … As it becomes more difficult to reach across the party line, campaigns are devoting more energy to firing up their hard-core supporters. For voters in the middle, this election may aggravate their feeling that politics no longer speaks to them, that it has become a dialogue of the deaf, a rant of uncompromising extremes.

Noel is pushing the attractive idea that polarization feeds on and reinforces itself. (Attractive from the point of view of elegant social mechanisms, I mean.) And Kevin can’t see a way to break the cycle. Red and Blue America is the latest version of the Culture Wars thesis. However, while it’s clear that the chattering classes — at least their representatives in the media — have become more polarized over time, I’m not sure I believe that everyone else has.

My main evidence for this comes from a 1996 paper by Paul DiMaggio, Bethany Bryson and John Evans called “Have Americans’ social attitudes become more polarized?” (JSTOR link, institutional subscription required).[1] They used a long time-series of “General Social Survey”:http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/projects/gensoc.asp opinion data and measured how skewed the distribution of public opinion on a wide range of questions was, and whether that changed over time. Respondents to opinion questions are generally given a statement and asked to choose a place on a five- or sometimes seven-point scale ranging from “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree.” If polarization was happening, you would see more and more people at the extreme ends of the scales and fewer in the middle. But DiMaggio et al found that, with the exception of questions about abortion, the distribution of opinion had not become more skewed. Across a wide range of issues, there were about as many people in the middle in the early 1990s as there had been in the early 1970s. I don’t know of sample-based research that rebuts this finding. At the same time, as an “an update”:http://www.princeton.edu/culturalpolicy/workpap/WP24%20-%20Evans.pdf by John Evans demonstrates, more recent data suggests that such polarization as does exist is being driven by the political system: “it seems clear that members of the public who are involved in politics are becoming polarized on moral issues.”

fn1. Full disclosure: Paul was my Ph.D advisor and John and Bethany are friends of mine.

{ 20 comments }

1

John Quiggin 04.25.04 at 9:49 am

US party politics has been underpolarized until recently, compared to other countries, primarily because of the residual effects of the Civil War. The existence of the Southern Democrats facilitated the survival of conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans in the US as a whole.

This in turn produced a non-partisan norm in which it was assumed to be desirable that individual members of Congress should act individually rather than as members of a party.

Now that the Southern Democrats have either died or become Republicans, US party politics is becoming polarized in the same way as in other countries, with Republicans and Democrats voting on party lines most of the time, and abandoning the norms of civility that go with a system of logrolling and bargaining.

American commentators (who naturally ignore any evidence from outside the US) tend to see this as a strange and disturbing development, rather than a reversion to global norms.

2

mc 04.25.04 at 9:57 am

Very interesting. I think it’s obviously got to do with the elections, those with an electoral interest always have to push the idea that opinions are becoming more polarised, and they will do anything to feed that impression because they _want_ people to become polarised rather than undecided.

They also want polls to “prove” that and newspapers to go on and on about it, so that they can attract more financial contributions.

3

Simon Kinahan 04.25.04 at 12:15 pm

The polarization now happening in the united states seems different to that in other democracies. That came from political programs that were intended to further interests of one class or the other. The importance of those divisions has lessened, so most democracies now have a rivalry between parties that are slightly more or slightly less progressive, but generally reformist and moderate. Westminster theatre notwithstanding, unless they smell blood they usually behave civilly to one another behind the scenes.

In the United States, however, there is a polarisation on moral issues that is not reflected anywhere else. The single strongest indicator of voting intentions is church attendance. Consider the following: Abortion ? Not a serious political issue outside the USA. Gay marriage ? Handled one way or another by nearly all Western European countries, with no real opposition. Teaching evolution in schools ? You’d be laughed at for even bringing it up.

I suppose you could argue that this merely polarization on different issues, but structurally similar to what happened in Europe last century. It might be, but I have a nasty feeling that it isn’t. The old division was about how much state intervention in the economy was advisable: that is a question that is open to compromise and empirical evidence. This split is on moral questions that aren’t.

4

Elaine Supkis 04.25.04 at 12:59 pm

We mirror the divisions within Muslim nations. We also fire up divisions within Muslim nations. Our whining about the violence we are causing is driving us all into WWIII. This is beyond stupid.

5

jam 04.25.04 at 2:05 pm

I’m not sure that the lack of change in the proportion of people who strongly agree/disagree proves a lack of increase in polarization. If there’s an increase in the range of possible (thinkable) opinion on a subject, then people who had been extreme can become moderate without changing their opinions. This effect might counterbalance the effect of increasing polarization.

I don’t know how you’d measure such change, though.

6

Patrick Nielsen Hayden 04.25.04 at 3:02 pm

I think Kieran is quite right to characterize this notion as “attractive.” It’s attractive because it spreads the blame around in a comfortably even-handed fashion and avoids having to contemplate the much less attractive idea that all this anger and discord is being stirred up by particular people and organizations in order to obtain particular advantages. It’s much nicer to live in a world in which we can tut-tut at the inevitable follies of human nature than it is to live in a world in which particular powerful entities are working hard to gain permanent advantage over us.

7

John Isbell 04.25.04 at 3:20 pm

I can tell you that the Kerry campaign on the ground in Indiana is targeting independents and Naderites as much as the base. I can’t speak for other states, but the observable fact of Democrats running to the middle since 1992 at least conflicts dramatically with the assertion that candidates today just focus on the base. Unless that only refers to the GOP.

8

Matt McIrvin 04.25.04 at 3:52 pm

Is the polarization on moral/religious issues really all that unusual? It’s unusual when you compare the US to Western European democracies, but these countries today are themselves unusual in that hardcore cultural conservatism is relatively weak there, compared to most of the world. I’ve seen American attitudes described as occupying a position somewhere between the developing world and western Europe.

The other thing to note is that Americans actually mostly manage to get along pretty well in their daily lives. They can have passionate arguments at the dinner table over polarizing moral issues, but by and large I don’t get into fistfights with my Republican co-workers. The level of vitriol is often exaggerated.

9

Matt McIrvin 04.25.04 at 3:56 pm

Regarding Patrick’s point: Yes, a lot of this comes directly and intentionally from bastards like Murdoch and Scaife and industry lobbies, but the fact remains that the environment exists in which it is possible and game-theoretically advantageous for them to do so, and it’s worth thinking about the deeper reasons why that is.

10

Ben Hyde 04.25.04 at 4:34 pm

This work is good – real data:

http://voteview.uh.edu/polartalk/polartalk.htm

Speaks to the polarization of the congress (absolutely), the public (much less so), as well as some discussion of what might be causal (weath distribution, immigration?).

11

Ophelia Benson 04.25.04 at 6:01 pm

I never really quite understand what’s meant by ‘moderate’ ‘extreme’ ‘polarized’ anyway. I mean – as opposed to what? Is everybody supposed to think more or less the same thing? If so, why? Why would we all have roughly the same opinions feelings and attitudes about everything?

12

Keith M Ellis 04.25.04 at 8:54 pm

The point, Ophelia, is about being oppositionally minded. Polarization is a different sort of thing than diversity of opinion.

13

felixrayman 04.26.04 at 9:57 am

My main evidence for this comes from a 1996 paper by Paul DiMaggio, Bethany Bryson and John Evans called “Have Americans’ social attitudes become more polarized?”

Got a study that was conducted, oh, I don’t know, maybe AFTER Bush, the Great Uniter was elected?

I mean we all know that things were better in the 90s and we all know why, so come back and post some more when you find some recent data.

14

bryan 04.26.04 at 10:25 am

“Attractive from the point of view of elegant
social mechanisms, I mean.”
Damn, my (ex)girlfriend got really mad when i said that to her. thanks a lot crooked timber!

15

Thorley Winston 04.26.04 at 11:04 pm

Now that the Southern Democrats have either died or become Republicans,

Then how do you explain Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Edwards, Richard Gephardt, Robert Byrd, and Jimmy Carter who last I checked were both Democrats and among the living?

16

Thorley Winston 04.26.04 at 11:12 pm

John Isbell wrote:

I can’t speak for other states, but the observable fact of Democrats running to the middle since 1992 at least conflicts dramatically with the assertion that candidates today just focus on the base. Unless that only refers to the GOP.

There really is not any evidence to support this in Kerry unless one believes that coming down wobbly on both sides of an issue constitutes “running to the middle.”

17

james 04.26.04 at 11:43 pm

With comments on the polarization of America, there is a common mistake. Primarly the fact that only about 1/3 of the country regularly votes. Take the 2000 Presidental election. Even with the large turnout the country was not evenly divided. Among eligable voters approxmently 1/4 voted Gore, 1/4 voted Bush, and 1/2 could not be bothered to vote. Its more accurate to say that the voting public has become more polarized. The vast majority don’t care enough to participate.

18

Keith M Ellis 04.27.04 at 12:02 am

For more on this subject, see the excellent series of articles on the trend of increasing political self-segregation in the US. For my own ease, and because it’s infolicious, I’ll just link to my MetFilter post on this topic, where one can find links to the articles and background material, as well.

19

Keith M Ellis 04.27.04 at 12:04 am

Er, “excellent series of articles on political self-segregation in the US by the Austin American-Statesman“.

20

fling93 04.27.04 at 2:24 am

james: With comments on the polarization of America, there is a common mistake. Primarly the fact that only about 1/3 of the country regularly votes…. Its more accurate to say that the voting public has become more polarized. The vast majority don’t care enough to participate.

I agree with that. And while I’m sure some of it can be chalked up to apathy, it would seem to me also that moderates would be turned off by having polarized candidates as their only choices.

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