Unmasking geographic polarization and clustering: A micro-scalar analysis of partisan voting behavior

Kinsella, Chad; McTague, Colleen; Raleigh, Kevin N.

doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.04.022

Cited by 40 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…McKee, 2008). Focused more directly on the The Big Sort's argument, Sussell (2013) similarly found that Californian voter registration data indicated growing polarisation at the census block and tract plus County scales, and Kinsella et al (2015) provided comparable evidence using microscale data for a single city -Cincinnati; across the country, Morrill et al (2011) found increased polarisation at the county scale between metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas between the 2004-2008 presidential elections.…”

Section: Critiquementioning

confidence: 88%

“…One clear defence of our approach is the pragmatic one that these are the data that exist and, as in so many studies of large population aggregates, researchers have little alternative but to accept the limitations of what is available: such research is necessarily constrained by what is possible. The smallest spatial units -the Counties (and County-equivalents) -are fixed and though it would certainly be very desirable to use smaller units, perhaps more akin to the districts and neighbourhoods that are used by individuals and households when making residential-location decisions -as in the localised studies by Kinsella et al (2015), Myers (2013), and Sussell (2013) -such data are not available on a national scale. In seeking to establish the existence of nation-wide patterns, therefore, data availability precludes the exploration of micro-scale patterns alongside those at the macro-and meso-scales undertaken here.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Spatial Polarization of Presidential Voting in the United States, 1992–2012: The “Big Sort” Revisited

Johnston

Manley

Jones

2016

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

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General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms Much has been written in recent years about the claimed polarisation of the US electorate, with substantial differences as to whether there has been greater spatial polarisation, at several geographical scales, over recent decades. To assess the veracity of those alternative views, a bespoke data set showing percentage support for the Democratic Party's presidential candidates at the County, State and Divisional scales has been analysed using a robust, statistically-based measure of polarisation/segregation. The ecological results provide clear and compelling evidence of a trend towards greater polarisation across the nine Census Divisions, across the 49 States within those Divisions, and across the 3077 Counties within the States -with strong evidence that the differences over time at the last of those scales are highly statistically significant. Within those general trends, polarisation has been greater in some States than others and also within some States more than othersidentifying additional geographies calling for further research.

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Section: Critiquementioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Polarization of Presidential Voting in the United States, 1992–2012: The “Big Sort” Revisited

Johnston

Manley

Jones

2016

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

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“…A strong case can be made for the inclusion of other scales, as in the micro-scale variations in Texas explored by Myers ( 2013 ) and in Cincinnati by Kinsella et al ( 2015 ), but such data are not available for a country-wide analysis.…”

Section: N O T E Smentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lang and Pearson-Merkowitz ( 2015 ) assess trends using inferential statistics, but their parallel approach to the study of polarization to that adopted here does not-unlike Glaeser and Ward, 2005-deploy an index of polarization. Both Myers ( 2013 ) and Kinsella et al ( 2015 ) use single-scale inferential measures of spatial clustering to identify changing intensity of polarization.…”

Section: N O T E Smentioning

confidence: 99%

The Growing Spatial Polarization of Presidential Voting in the United States, 1992–2012: Myth or Reality?

Johnston

Jones

Manley

2016

APSC

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There has been considerable debate regarding a hypothesis that the American electorate has become spatially more polarized over recent decades. Using a new method for measuring polarization, this paper evaluates that hypothesis regarding voting for the Democratic party's presidential candidates at six elections since 1992, at three separate spatial scales. The fi ndings are unambiguous: polarization has increased substantially across the country's nine census divisions, across the 49 states within those divisions, and across the 3,077 counties within the states-with the most signifi cant change at the fi nest of those three scales. W riting in 2005, Glaeser and Ward addressedwhat they termed five myths regarding American political geography, of which the second was "the two parties [Republican and Democrat] are more spatially polarized than in the past" (Glaeser and Ward 2005 , 5). They claimed that "the number of states that can be considered 'safe' for either party has not been rising over time" and, using the well-established dissimilarity index for measuring spatial segregation, demonstrated that "county-level evidence shows that segregation by party is not signifi cantly increasing"-although they did identify a "slight upward trend" over the four Three years later, in a much-discussed book ( The Big Sort ), Bishop and Cushing ( 2008 ) argued that electoral polarization had indeed been taking place over the preceding three decades, as a result of sorting processes consequent upon major volumes of inter-region, inter-state and inter-community migration. Abrams and Fiorina ( 2012 ) published a major critique of The Big Sort , challenging both the conclusion that polarization had occurred and the processes-selective migration-that Bishop and Cushing claimed were the cause of that geographical outcome. Looking only at the fi rst part of that challenge-whether or not spatial polarization had occurred-Abrams and Fiorina rightly criticized Bishop and Cushing for relying on two arbitrary end-dates (especially the fi rst) to establish a trend. They also questioned the use of the binary division of the country into "landslide" and "non-landslide" counties as the elements of the portrayal; other indices suggested to them that counties were becoming "increasingly politically heterogeneous, not increasingly homogeneous" (Abrams and Fiorina 2012 , 205

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“…Voters may have become more sorted by political viewpoint without having to move somewhere else, through the processes of socialization and conformity to group norms (Carlson and Settle 2016;Cialdini and Goldstein 2004;Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995;Levendusky 2009;Lyons 2011;Parsons 2015). According to this theory, the increase in the urban-rural divide seen in recent election maps (Kinsella et al 2015;Walker 2013) derives primarily from the strengthening association between party affiliation, political ideology, and other social identities at the individual level and less through residential relocation. Hence the liberal leaning voters residing in urban settings quickly learn to identify themselves as Democrats, whereas the conservative leaning voters in outlying areas are socialized to affiliate with Republicans.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Fit as a Component of Neighborhood Preference and Satisfaction

Gimpel

Hui

2018

City & Community

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We examine the role party identification plays in moderating people's perception of place. Do people rely on heuristics to gauge neighborhood partisan composition? If so, those estimates may influence their perception of fit and neighborhood satisfaction. We find that in the absence of concrete, detailed information, people make quick judgments. Republicans, compared to Democrats and non-partisans, are more likely to develop impressions based on the specific location characteristics presented here. When perceived to be a political minority in an area, people are less likely to feel that they belong. In addition to conventional economic and life-cycle factors, political perceptions also affect judgments about the suitability of prospective neighborhoods.

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Unmasking geographic polarization and clustering: A micro-scalar analysis of partisan voting behavior

Cited by 40 publications

References 47 publications

Spatial Polarization of Presidential Voting in the United States, 1992–2012: The “Big Sort” Revisited

Spatial Polarization of Presidential Voting in the United States, 1992–2012: The “Big Sort” Revisited

The Growing Spatial Polarization of Presidential Voting in the United States, 1992–2012: Myth or Reality?

Political Fit as a Component of Neighborhood Preference and Satisfaction

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