The Impact of Elite Polarization on Partisan Ambivalence and Indifference

Thornton, Judd R.

doi:10.1007/s11109-012-9196-y

Cited by 49 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Our argument builds upon recent work by Abramowitz and Webster (2015) and Iyengar et al (2012), who study increases in affective polarization towards elites and political parties over the last several decades. 4 Previous research finds that the nature of the choice between candidates affects a wide range of behaviors and attitudes, including turnout decisions (Brody and Page 1973;Plane and Gershtenson 2004;Rogowski 2014), vote choice (Rogowski forthcoming;Vegetti 2014), and opinion formation (Druckman et al 2013;Garner and Palmer 2011;Thornton 2012). We expect that these dynamics similarly characterize the ways citizens evaluate political officials.…”

Section: Ideological Differences and Affective Polarizationmentioning

confidence: 94%

How Ideology Fuels Affective Polarization

2015

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Scholars have reached mixed conclusions about the implications of increased political polarization for citizen decision-making. In this paper, we argue that citizens respond to ideological divergence with heightened affective polarization. Using a survey experiment conducted with a nationally representative sample of U.S. citizens, we find that increased ideological differences between political figures produce increasingly polarized affective evaluations, and that these differences are especially large among respondents with stronger ideological commitments and higher levels of political interest. We provide further support for these findings in an observational study of citizens' evaluations of the U.S. Senators from their state. We also find that the polarizing effects of ideological differences can be largely mitigated with biographical information about the public officials, which suggests that the pernicious consequences of ideological polarization can be overcome by focusing on matters other than political disagreement.

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Section: Ideological Differences and Affective Polarizationmentioning

confidence: 94%

How Ideology Fuels Affective Polarization

2015

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“…This time period, however, may be affected by elite polarization, beginning in 1980 (Thornton, 2013), which could result in partisan sorting. There are several benefits of using the ANES.…”

Section: Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

Gender, Partisanship, and Issue Gaps

Lizotte

2017

Anal Soc Iss & Public Policy

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A defining feature of American politics, including party identification, is the question of the proper role of government. Partisanship is a prevailing way that individuals organize their attitudes. Democrats should take the Democratic Party's positions, and Republicans should take the Republican Party's positions. Instead, people have conflicting considerations that shape their opinions. Given that gender is integral in structuring individuals' positions in society, it is reasonable to expect that gender differences might produce intraparty differences. This article establishes a gender gap in scope of government that transcends partisanship. Using the cumulative American National Election Study Data 1994Data -2008, I find strong evidence that for a number of issue areas, women are more supportive of an activist government than men of the same party. Preferences regarding the scope of government provide a coherent explanation for these observed gaps.

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“…Wagner (2007) shows that increasing partisan divisions and ideological extremity among members of Congress lead constituents to feel less satisfied with their legislator's casework and less likely to feel that the legislator would be helpful if contacted, but Brady, Ferejohn, and Harbridge (2008) find no evidence between polarization and either accountability or responsiveness. Polarization better enables citizens to match their policy interests to a candidate or party, thus strengthening the connection between election results and policy outcomes (Hetherington 2001;Levendusky 2010), but it also generates increased ambivalence toward the parties (Thornton 2013) and leads to lower-quality opinion formation among citizens (Druckman, Peterson, and Slothuus 2013). In short, existing literature on party polarization provides no clear guidance about how ideological conflict in elections affects voter turnout.…”

Section: Existing Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Electoral Choice, Ideological Conflict, and Political Participation

Rogowski

2013

American J Political Sci

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Generations of democratic theorists argue that democratic systems should present citizens with clear and distinct electoral choices. Responsible party theorists further argued that political participation increases with greater ideological conflict between competing electoral options. Empirical evidence on this question, however, remains deeply ambiguous. This article introduces new joint estimates of citizen preferences and the campaign platforms chosen by pairs of candidates in U.S. House and Senate races. The results show that increasing levels of ideological conflict reduce voter turnout, and are robust across a wide range of empirical specifications. Furthermore, the findings provide no support for existing accounts that emphasize how ideology or partisanship explains the relationship between ideological conflict and turnout. Instead, I find that increasing levels of candidate divergence reduce turnout primarily among citizens with lower levels of political sophistication. These findings provide the strongest evidence to date for how mass political behavior is conditioned by electoral choice.

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The Impact of Elite Polarization on Partisan Ambivalence and Indifference

Cited by 49 publications

References 42 publications

How Ideology Fuels Affective Polarization

How Ideology Fuels Affective Polarization

Gender, Partisanship, and Issue Gaps

Electoral Choice, Ideological Conflict, and Political Participation

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