How Polarized are Citizens? Measuring Ideology from the Ground-Up

Draca, Mirko; Schwarz, Carlo

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3154431

Cited by 33 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 84 publications

(64 reference statements)

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“…A large literature in political science documents the rising polarization of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and the discussions of political polarization is undoubtedly on the rise (Gentzkow 2016), but the literature to date has been far less conclusive on whether Republicans and Democrats in the US population overall have been growing apart. Most of the academic work has focused on differences in social attitudes captured in the GSS or the ANES, with some studies concluding that polarization is on the rise (e.g., Abramowitz and Saunders 2008;Draca and Schwarz 2018) and others rejecting this conclusion (e.g., Fiorina and Abrams 2008;Glaeser and Ward 2006). Much of the disagreement between these studies is ultimately driven by differences in how polarization is measured.…”

Section: Political Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Coming Apart? Cultural Distances in the United States over Time

Bertrand

Kamenica

2018

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We thank the University of Chicago Booth School of Business for financial support. Jihoon Sung provided excellent research assistance. We thank Jann Spiess and Clara Marquardt for their advice and guidance with the implementation of the machine learning algorithms. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

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Section: Political Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Coming Apart? Cultural Distances in the United States over Time

Bertrand

Kamenica

2018

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“…Multiple research evidence (e.g. Draca and Schwarz, 2018;Boxell, Gentzkow, and Shapiro, 2020) indicates a more pronounced political divide in the US relative to other countries. Finally, we do not find that subjects who had a direct contact with Asians in the past perceive the extent of discrimination differently than those with no previous exposure (p=0.45).…”

Section: Prior Beliefs About the Extent Of Discrimination Against Asiansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning about Ethnic Discrimination from Different Information Sources

Korlyakova

2021

SSRN Journal

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We experimentally study whether public beliefs about ethnic discrimination, an emotionally loaded issue, are shifted more by information from experts or from ordinary people. We also examine whether people are inclined to choose the most influential sources. For this purpose, we combine, in a novel design, the random provision of information from different sources with endogenous information acquisition from the same sources. We find that individuals update their beliefs most in response to information from experts, namely researchers studying ethnic minorities and human resource managers. Exogenous adjustments in beliefs do not induce changes in attitudes to ethnic minorities. Consistent with the strength of belief updating, more individuals choose information from experts over information from ordinary people. This result suggests that, in the aggregate, people behave rationally as they favor a source that is perceived to be relatively accurate. The findings have implications for information dissemination policies.

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“…In our first eight studies, we provide a comprehensive series of tests concerning whether and how people perceive that society is changing over time, testing various facets of these beliefs, including general perceptions of change in society (Studies 1A through 1C), perceptions of change in the number of liberals and conservatives in society (Studies 2A and 2B), and participants' own perceptions of how the number of people who share their (liberal or conservative) values is changing (Studies 3A through 3C). In Study 4, we assess whether these effects extend beyond the American political context by conducting a conceptual replication in The Netherlands, a country with a multi-party political system and less political polarization than in the US (Adams, De Vries, & Leiter, 2012;Draca & Schwarz, 2020;Reiljan, 2019).…”

Section: The Present Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

How the Perceived Moral Trajectory of Society Drives Support for Anti-Democratic Behaviour and Authoritarian Leaders

Ruisch¹,

Manzi²,

Scheepers³

2021

Preprint

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In a series of 14 studies (total N = 9,684), we examine how the (perceived) intergroup dynamics of the “culture wars” differentially impact conservatives’ and liberals’ political cognition and behavior. Past work has shown that both liberals and conservatives perceive a strong conflict with the opposing ideological group, and seek to advance their group’s relative position within that conflict. However, our findings show that people–both liberals and conservatives alike–generally perceive that liberals have the upper hand in this conflict: People see society as becoming more liberal over time, and believe that the number of political conservatives is dwindling. This gives rise to a sense of existential threat among conservatives, who express greater concern about the continued existence of their ideological ingroup. Our findings also suggest that this sense of threat, in turn, motivates greater support for counternormative and extreme political actions (e.g., voter suppression, censoring the media, prohibiting free protest) to protect one’s political group “by any means necessary.”

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How Polarized are Citizens? Measuring Ideology from the Ground-Up

Abstract: The version presented here is a Working Paper (or 'pre-print') that may be later published elsewhere.

Cited by 33 publications

References 84 publications

Coming Apart? Cultural Distances in the United States over Time

Coming Apart? Cultural Distances in the United States over Time

Learning about Ethnic Discrimination from Different Information Sources

How the Perceived Moral Trajectory of Society Drives Support for Anti-Democratic Behaviour and Authoritarian Leaders

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