The Persistence of America’s Political Polarization
And the structural conditions that got us here
Not so long ago, there was a robust debate in the political science literature about whether Americans were politically polarized. While such debate perhaps seems quaint now, a major gap still exists between what political scientists know and understand about political polarization and what the general public tends to believe about it. In this short piece, I detail some of the major findings, points of agreement, and points of debate regarding polarization and partisan ideological extremism in the United States.
First, the term “polarization” is used so abundantly and with regard to so many contexts that it cannot mean only one thing. Polarization might mean that Republicans and Democrats are strongly opposed to one another or have greater distance between them, or that the members of each group are more homogenous rather than diverse. Any and all of these can accurately be called polarization.
Polarization does not necessarily imply extremism. While most Americans tend to think of increased polarization as increased partisan extremism, one does not necessarily beget the other. Whether increased extremism leads to advanced polarization depends on how many people have adopted more extreme views and how far apart partisans tend to…
